Earlier today, we learned that FX’s Legion would be ending its run after its upcoming third season. But moments ago, the show’s official Twitter just revealed some casting news confirming that some very important (but as-yet-unseen) X-Men characters will be entering the story at last.
Noah Hawley is pleased to announce two guest castings for the final year of #LegionFX
Stephanie Corneliussen will play David Haller’s mother, “Gabrielle,” and Harry Lloyd will play his father, “Professor X.”
— Legion (@LegionFX) February 5, 2019
You read that right. Harry Lloyd — nasty ol’ Viserys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, but more recently of Counterpart — will be playing David Haller’s father, Charles “Professor X” Xavier. Stephanie Corneliussen (best-known as Mr. Robot’s scheming Lady Macbeth, Joanna Wellick) will play David’s mother, Gabrielle.
In the comics, Gabrielle Haller was a Holocaust survivor who’d spent years in a catatonic state from her traumas, before Charles Xavier was brought in by her doctor to use his psychic powers in an attempt to break through the mental barriers she’d erected. It worked, and in her recovery process, the two eventually fell in love — they had a whirlwind romance in Israel before amicably breaking up, with Xavier leaving Israel unaware that Gabrielle is pregnant with David.
Years later, David’s own mutant powers awakened after a terrorist attack on his mother (who had become an ambassador and married the doctor who introduced her to Charles), which killed the terrorists but left young David in a catatonic state of his own. The boy’s powers started going haywire, which eventually lead to Gabrielle having to reach out to Charles to aid him — and when Charles psychically entered David’s mind, that’s when he found out for the first time that David is actually his own son. After that, Charles attempts to be a supportive parent, despite Gabrielle hiding David from him for so long.
Whether or not that’s the story the FX series will keep to, of course, remains to be seen. Legion will return for its third and final season this June.