Ian McKellen shares on-set anecdote in Rome, says he ‘imagined’ destroying Mar-a-Lago in upcoming Avengers film

Sir Ian McKellen recounted an anecdote at an open-air film festival in Rome on Sunday night, telling a crowd of about 2,000 filmgoers that he had once “imagined” destroying Mar-a-Lago while thinking about his participation in an upcoming Avengers movie. The comment was delivered as the festival screened advance footage featuring McKellen’s appearance in Avengers: Doomsday, according to The Guardian’s report.

The festival stop in Rome included an on-screen preview that showed McKellen in the Marvel Studios franchise, as he discussed what it is like to return to a character tied to the X-Men. The actor framed his remarks around his experience working on the film, with the Mar-a-Lago reference presented as a personal imagination rather than a disclosed plot point, the report said.

McKellen’s appearance in Avengers: Doomsday is described as a return for the X-Men character he portrays, and The Guardian reported that his segment of advance footage was shown to festival attendees in conjunction with his remarks. The film’s release window is described as December.

The actor’s statement about Mar-a-Lago centered on what he said he had pictured during his time on the set. The Guardian’s account does not indicate that the movie’s final script includes a specific sequence involving Mar-a-Lago, nor does it provide direct information about how the reference relates to the film’s finished storyline.

Avengers: Doomsday has been positioned in the reporting as a continuing entry in the Avengers franchise that brings back McKellen’s X-Men role. By appearing in advance footage at a public festival setting, the actor and the production used an international, open-air venue to reach a large audience with early material ahead of the December release.

For audiences, the remarks function as a behind-the-scenes anecdote, but they also reflect how major studios’ large-scale productions are often marketed and discussed publicly through celebrity appearances and selective previews. McKellen’s comment also drew on a recognizable U.S. landmark, underscoring the way international entertainment coverage can surface political-adjacent references in pop-culture contexts.

What happens next is governed primarily by the film’s release process. The next confirmed public details would come from additional promotional materials and from the December release itself, which is when the film’s actual plot elements, including any use of the Mar-a-Lago reference, would be verifiable for viewers. Until then, the only publicly substantiated element in the report is that McKellen described what he imagined while working on the set.

Because the Mar-a-Lago line is presented as an anecdote from the actor’s imagination rather than as confirmed plot disclosure in the reporting, readers may want to treat it as a personal recollection. The practical implication is that no concrete, scene-level claim about what the final movie contains is established by the festival remarks alone.