Marvel Studios has cast 23-year-old Broadway performer and social media personality Maya Boyd as Storm (Ororo Munroe) in its upcoming “X-Men” reboot, per theroot.com. The announcement was made at Disney’s D23 fan event in Anaheim, California, on August 14.
The role marks Boyd’s feature film debut. She previously built a following of more than 450,000 on TikTok since 2021 through skits, family videos and singing clips.
Boyd made her Broadway debut in 2023 in the Tony Award-winning musical Merrily We Roll Along, playing the supporting role of Mimi, while completing a musical theatre degree at Michigan State University. She went on to land the lead role in & Juliet, performing from April 2024 to June 2025. She currently stars as Molly Cunningham in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, directed by Debbie Allen, alongside Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer. Boyd has credited Allen, whose dance academy she attended at age 13, with sparking her interest in musical theatre.
Boyd is the third actress to play Storm on screen, following Halle Berry in the original 2000s X-Men films and Alexandra Shipp in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019). Berry’s casting drew criticism from some fans for not reflecting the character’s dark-skinned comic book depiction.
Boyd’s casting has been welcomed on social media, with some users likening her trajectory to established stage-to-screen actors such as Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Responding to the announcement on Instagram, Boyd wrote: “It’s an honor to be your Storm.”
•Featured image: Maya Boyd at the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event on August 14, 2026 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Disney)