James Mangold and Fox have finally confirmed that British actor Richard E. Grant‘s villainous character in Logan is in fact Dr. Zander Rice from the X-23 program.
The film’s official Instagram account confirmed this today with a recent post including a photo of Grant titled “Rice”. It was first reported by The Wrap that his character would be Dr. Rice, who is the one responsible for creating Wolverine’s clone X-23 aka Laura (played by Dafne Keen).
There had been speculation from most that because Bryan Singer had mentioned Mister Sinister in a X-Men: Apocalypse commentary being in the third Wolverine film he would be automatically in there and was played by Grant. Singer really has nothing to do with Logan and has zero creative say with the project, it’s possible he was trolling fans on his way out the door from the franchise.
The co-writer and director James Mangold, who hadn’t really chimed-in about rumors or speculation over the last year came out publicly to debunk the Sinister rumor. It remains to be seen if Sinister or a teaser of him will be in the film, but at least we know Grant is officially not this character.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x05U75X3_Wg
Logan is set for release on March 2nd, 2017.
SOURCE: 20TH CENTURY FOX