Anna Paquin has indicated that she is alright with her role in X-Men: Days of Future Past being cut.

The actress, who played Rogue in the previous three X-Men films, shot parts for the 2014 picture, but owing to time restrictions, they were removed from the final edit.

Enraged fans were not pleased, and after a successful campaign, a so-called “Rogue Cut” of the film was published on Blu-ray and DVD extras, resulting in an additional 17 minutes of content, including Rogue’s sequences.

Fans were overjoyed, but Paquin has stated that she was perfectly fine with being deleted from the film in the first place — and that she is still grateful for the fans’ support.

“It wasn’t a big deal for me, I was fine,” she explained. ‘It happens, whatever. Also, I was a new mom and already had a full-time job so I was kind of like, ‘Okay, so I’m not in the movie. That’s fine’.  Then the movie came out, and a lot of people were extremely defensive of me […] and then the Rogue Cut came out.

“It was kind of crazy. It’s incredibly flattering […] I appreciate all the people who were very vocal, who fought for Rogue.”

Anna Paquin Has Never Watched X-Men: Days Of Future Past – The Rogue Cut

JOHN SHEARER GETTY IMAGES

Even though she hasn’t watched the Rogue Cut of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Anna Paquin is really “appreciative” of the X-Men fans who pushed to get Fox to release it.

“Truthfully, I haven’t actually seen either [version]. Hey, everyone with newborn twins who sits down and watches films for their own pleasure, raise their hand. Not me,” Paquin said.

Despite being an important part of the comics’ plot, Paquin was overshadowed by Ellen Page’s Kitty Pryde, but she did appear in Days of Future Past. However, there was an extra 17 minutes of footage that was deleted from the theatrical release, in which Rogue took over for a wounded Pryde to aid Wolverine complete his time travel mission. In 2015, 20th Century Fox published The Rogue Cut. The Rogue Cut was released as a limited edition version of the main film.

In her remarks to EW on Days of Future Past, Anna Paquin reveals that she had just given baby at the time the movie was published. In 2012, Paquin and her husband, True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer, welcomed twins Poppy and Charlie Moyer, with the task of caring for two children proving too much for the actress to focus on Days of Future Past. And, given how her little part was eventually trimmed from the theatrical release, the film must have been much further from her mind.

Paquin was supposed to reprise her role as Rogue in Days of Future Past, the sequel to X-Men: First Class, with Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Ellen Page.

“Those films have really really interesting, let’s call it, processes as far as how the scripts come about and they change so many times over the course of shooting,” Paquin explains. “And having done a bunch of ‘em already, I wasn’t massively surprised that the stuff shot first week of photography didn’t really fit by the end, six months later.”

Paquin was unconcerned with her lack of inclusion in the film since she had more pressing concerns, although she did express her gratitude for the positive reception from fans. There’s a good probability that the complete revised edit of the film would not have been published if the outcry was not so loud. The sequences would have been included in the home video version, but not the complete film.

“It wasn’t really a big deal for me, I was fine,” Paquin says of being left out of the theatrical release. “It happens. Also, I was a new mom and already had a full-time job so I was like, ‘Okay, so I’m not in the movie. That’s fine.’ Then the movie comes out and a lot of people got very defensive on my behalf… and then the Rogue Cut appeared. … It’s incredibly flattering… I appreciate all the people who were very vocal, who fought for Rogue.”

X-Men: Days of Future Past was a courageous and ambitious addition to the X-Men franchise, but in the end, Anna Paquin is simply another actress. When she needed to focus on her personal life, she grew less involved in the comic book franchise. Rogue hadn’t played a major role in the story since The Last Stand, so it’s understandable that Paquin would want to move on with her life while keeping her options open for another appearance.

The film, which was released in 2014, depicted futuristic X-Men struggling for survival against enormous Sentinel machines who assisted in the enslavement of mutants in concentration camps. To prevent this reality from occurring, Kitty Pryde sends Wolverine back in time. Originally, Kitty would be hurt, and the mutants would have to locate Rogue in order to transmit Kitty’s powers before she bleeds out and destroys the temporal connection.

The next installment in the X-Men franchise will focus on a tale that Paquin was a part of in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. It remains to be seen whether Dark Phoenix will make the same blunders as The Last Stand.