ANAHEIM, Calif. — Adam Driver will make a long-anticipated entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe to play super villain Mister Sinister, and “Obsession” breakout star Inde Navarrette will play Rogue in Disney 's forthcoming film reboot of “X-Men.”

Driver and Navarrette were among the new cast members announced Friday night at Disney's D23 convention by Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, along with Driver's “Girls” castmate Christopher Abbott as Professor Charles Xavier and Maya Boyd as Storm. The film is slated for release in May 2028.

The announcements were the biggest news to emerge from Disney Entertainment's D23 presentation that also brought updates on its forthcoming “Star Wars” titles and a song-and-dance that went sideways from the stars of “Frozen 3.”

Driver's name was often rumored and often dismissed as an “X-Men” possibility. Many thought he'd be playing the antihero Magneto. The rest of the cast appeared on stage at the Honda Center arena in Anaheim, Calif., while Driver appeared on a big screen.

“Kevin and I had been talking for years about my joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I think we finally found the perfect film,” Driver told the crowd of 12,000 via video. “So I’m very excited to be playing the role of Maaagneto!” he said before pausing, taking it back and saying, “even better, Nathaniel Millbury,” an alias for Mister Sinister.

Also on stage were previously announced cast members Samara Weaving, who is playing Emma Frost; Kit Connor, who is playing Scott “Cyclops” Summers; and Sadie Sink, whose role as Jean Grey was revealed by her appearance in this summer’s Marvel megahit “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”

The castmates were as new to each other as they were to the fans.

“They’ve just met backstage for the very first time,” Feige said.

Navarrette had also been heavily rumored to have a role after fast becoming one of Hollywood's most sought-after actors for her striking performance as a spellbound girlfriend in the indie horror hit “Obsessed” earlier this year.

The “X-Men” joining the MCU became possible with Disney's 2019 acquisition of Fox's film studio.

Director Jake Schreier is heading the reboot. and two writers from prestige TV — “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin and “The Bear” co-showrunner Joanna Calo — are working on the script.

Ryan Gosling and director Shawn Levy headlined the “Star Wars” part of the night with a presentation on their film “Star Wars: Starfighter,” which is getting a May, 2027 release.

Gosling's appearance on stage was preceded by clips of him as a child cast member of “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

“I owe a lot to Disney,” Gosling said. “Had they not looked far and wide and come to my hometown I would not be here today. Now, 30 years later, I'm back, and it's changing my life again.”

Shawn Levy put on Gosling a leather jacket with his “Star Wars” character Kade Auberon's skull-and-bones symbol.

Gosling described Auberon as “a guy from the wrong side of the galaxy, whose fate is intertwined with the fastest starfighter ever built,” before showing clips from the film.

Disney announced earlier this summer at its San Diego Comic-Con presentation that Gosling will play the character Ghost Rider in the MCU, first in a “Black Panther” sequel, then in a “Ghost Rider” film that Levy will also direct. Both are set for release in 2028.

“Star Wars: Ahsoka” star Rosario Dawson also appeared to promote the Season 2 return of her Disney+ series, as did Hayden Christensen, who will return as a force-ghost version of her mentor Anakin Skywalker.

Marvel veterans also took the D23 stage as past and future “Avengers” stars Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Hayley Atwell introduced a new trailer for “Avengers: Doomsday,” to be released Dec. 18.

The footage shows Downey, now playing Dr. Doom having shed his Iron Man suit, beating back Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and his hammer, and shows Evans, who is returning as Captain America, holding a baby. And it shows Ian McKellan as a long-haired, haggard, struggling version of Magneto.

Hugh Jackman appeared on the big screen to tell Feige he's willing to appear in “Doomsday” as Wolverine. Whether he'll be in the movie has led to heated fan speculation. His answer wasn't definitive, but most bets are now switching to yes.

Fans also got a glimpse of the soon-to-drop Disney+ series “VisionQuest.” Paul Bettany, who returns to his Marvel role as Vision, and James Spader, who returns to playing Ultron, showed a trailer with oddly human and ordinary versions of their cybernetic characters. Bettany said it’s been a pleasure to play multiple versions of Vision, who has “rather inconveniently died several times.” But, he said, “I'm told in the Marvel Universe that no one is ever really dead.”

Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel sang an eerie new arrangement of “Frozen Heart” from their first film playing princess sisters Elsa and Anna as they introduced the forthcoming “Frozen 3.”

Or they tried to, anyway. The segment was plagued with malfunctioning audio, video and a set of doors that failed to open.

They ad-libbed their way through it like pros.

“Should we go back and try it again?” Menzel asked at the song's end.

Bell described for the crowd everything that was supposed to happen and said, “You guys were gonna freak out.”

They found their way back to the script.

“Doesn’t it kind of feel like the world of Frozen is a bit different?” Bell said. Menzel added, “Maybe a little bit more mysterious?”

“Yes, OK, we're back on track,” Bell said, to big laughs.

Their castmate Josh Gad followed with a rendition of “Oooh, Samantha,” a love song his snowman character Olaf will sing in “Frozen 3.”

The night’s other big musical set pieces included songs and dance from the cast of “The Greatest Showman,” the stage musical adaptation of the 2017 Jackman film that is premiering on London's West End next year.

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NEW YORK — Jenna Ortega has revealed the lengths she went to as a child actor to avoid being a burden for fear of derailing her fledgling career while on set.

“I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on,” the 23-year-old “Wednesday” actress told Esquire in its “How I Got Here” YouTube clip. “I wasn’t asking for a sip of water. I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.”

She now allows that “not actually looking after myself” may have been a mistake. The Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has strict rules about how child actors are treated, many of them based on state law.

Ortega knew at age 7 that she wanted to act, and once her parents were done laughing, they became unwavering supporters, she said. By age 9 she had landed her first big movie part, as the disabled daughter of the late Miguel Ferrer’s vice president Gil Rodriguez in “Iron Man 3.” Her character was missing a foot.

“I had sat on my leg all day at work, and I limped all the way to the car with smiles and tears running down my face,” she told Esquire. “I was just so happy to have been on a movie set. I refused to leave the wheelchair, because if somebody needed me, I wanted to be ready.”

The actress hinted at what it was like “ growing up Disney” in a 2025 Harper’s Bazaar sit-down. At 13 she began playing Harley Diaz, the protagonist in Disney Channel’s “Stuck in the Middle,” the 2016-19 series about a middle child of seven kids — all too familiar terrain for Ortega, who’s in the middle of six. She also appeared as the young version of series protagonist Jane Villanueva in “Jane the Virgin” from 2014-2019.

She counts “Richie Rich,” “You” and “Elena of Avalor” among other television credits. On the big screen she’s known for her parts in the “Scream” and “Beetlejuice” movie franchises.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — In her splashy new interview with British Vogue, Nicole Kidman has lots to say about putting her once-seemingly unshakable, 18-year marriage to Keith Urban behind her after their shock split last year.

The 59-year-old Oscar winner said she’s moving on in her life by “embracing love, staying open” and keeping her “heart open” to all kinds of possibilities in her career and personal life. This open-hearted approach probably explains a new report from the “Deux U” podcast, saying that Kidman has been “playing the field” with different men in recent months — including the “private equity guy” she was spotted with in Italy last month.

Meanwhile, Kidman also has been enjoying a pretty amazing summer as she prepares to promote her upcoming film with Sandra Bullock, “Practical Magic 2,” a sequel to their hit 1998 comedy. As summarized by Vogue, Kidman’s summer has included being photographed in the Royal Box at Wimbledon and in various sun-soaked European destinations, including in Portofino with the “private equity guy.”

Kidman also told British Vogue that she and her daughters, 15 and 17, had been going on a “theater tear” in London’s West End, and she confessed to sneaking into an overnight rave party in Ibiza. “Sometimes I’ll wear a wig to hide, a little dark wig, and then I can just dance,” Kidman revealed.

The glamorous film and TV veteran also opened up a bit about her first marriage to Tom Cruise, admitting they fell “madly in love” when they met in 1989 — and then she was then married to “this huge movie star husband” at the tender age of 23. She said she was warned that being married to Cruise could hurt her career, but she said she didn’t care. In the end, her 10-year marriage to Cruise and their 2001 divorce arguably made her so famous she had her pick of career opportunities that complemented her talent. Following their divorce, she of course received back-to-back Oscar nominations and won for “The Hours” in 2003.

In regard to more recent speculation about Kidman’s personal life, her British Vogue interview didn’t address the breathless reports about a possible new man in her life.

This rumored new boyfriend has been identified by Page Six, the Daily Mail and TMZ as Michael Reinstein, a wealthy and handsome Beverly Hills businessman and private equity investor, who was photographed lounging poolside with Kidman in Portofino on July 18. As TMZ also reported, Reinstein did the new-boyfriend thing on July 30 of picking Kidman up at the airport in Burbank and giving her a ride somewhere in his black Ferrari 296 GTB.

Despite the new boyfriend reports, the relationship is still “very, very fresh” and may not be exclusive, according to Deux U, the gossip and celebrity podcast hosted by Deux, the anonymous publisher of the crowdsourced @deuxmoi Instagram account.

Deux reported in early June that Kidman was seeing “an entertainment executive,” with Deux’s source saying he had been her date to the Met Gala in early May. But he did not walk the red carpet with her because they were keeping the relationship “super, super, super low key,” Deux said.

Fast forward to Kidman being photographed in Portofino with “private equity guy,” as Deux called Reinstein. But “private equity guy” is different from the “entertainment executive,” Deux pointed out, with her source telling her that Kidman was introduced to “private equity guy” by her “Big Little Lies” co-star Reese Witherspoon.

Deux’s source said that “the entertainment executive is still in the picture,” which means that Kidman isn’t letting herself get pinned down right now.

“She’s the baby girl after all, and for the first time, she’s very open to playing the field,” Deux said. She was referring to Kidman’s 2024 erotic drama, “Baby Girl,” in which she plays a powerful, middle-aged corporate executive who has an affair with a young male employee and explores new avenues of sexual desire.

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From combined wire services