Fantastic Four: First Steps Trailer Reveals A Game Of Thrones And Doctor Who Veteran In The Cast

A beloved British character actor has been added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we've just been offered our first glimpse at the man in action. Disney and Marvel Studios have only just released a brand new trailer for "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," which offers our first look at the film's Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). But it also opens with a glimpse at "Game of Thrones" and "Doctor Who" alum Mark Gatiss, who has an interesting role to play in this summer's superheroic proceedings.

The trailer begins with a speech from the stage of a fictional talk show called "The Ted Gilbert Show," with Gatiss portraying Ted Gilbert. While we don't get to see a ton of him in the footage, save for the opening chunk, Gatiss is very convincing as a retro-futuristic version of a '60s talk show host, that much is certain. His function is to sort of lay out how the Fantastic Four came to be, which is a nice way to get around making this another origin story movie like director Josh Trank's ill-fated "Fantastic Four" from 2015.

Gatiss may not be a household name or anything like that in the U.S., but he's better known in the U.K. and, even for American audiences, he's been anchoring quality programming for some time. Aside from the aforementioned role as Tycho on "Game of Thrones," he's also been creatively involved with the "Doctor Who" franchise, both as a performer and writer. Audiences will likewise know him as Mycroft Holmes in BBC's beloved "Sherlock" series (which Gatiss co-created as well). Not for nothing, but Gatiss even had a role in Netflix's "3 Body Problem" series adaptation.

We could go on and on listing Gatiss' credits, which also include British favorites such as "The League of Gentlemen" and his many, many smaller roles in big movies, among them "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning." Point being, he's joining an already very stacked cast led by Pedro Pascal ("The Mandalorian") as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby ("Hobbs & Shaw") as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn ("Stranger Things") as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach ("The Bear") as Ben Grimm/The Thing.

Matt Shakman ("WandaVision") is in the director's chair for "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," which is just one of two huge movies Marvel has coming out this summer, along with "Thunderbolts*" (which is kicking off the summer box office season in early May). Both movies are facing enormous pressure to deliver the goods, so this trailer has a lot of weight to carry. As for the story at hand? Per the official synopsis:

Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, [the Fantastic Four] must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus' plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren't bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.

Indeed, this movie will finally be delivering a more comics-accurate Galactus after the disaster that was "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer." So, there's a lot going on, and it would be easy to gloss over a game show host in all of it. But the fact that even a character that far down the call sheet is being played by a compelling actor is a good sign.

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" hits theaters on July 25, 2025.