The most surprising Illuminati member has to be John Krasinski as Reed Richards, primarily because this is the only new actor playing a new, previously unestablished within the MCU role. Every other actor in the Illuminati has played a version of their character before, and then there’s stretchy Jim Halpert (or, rather, elastic Jack Ryan). Reed Richards is the main brain behind the Fantastic Four, the original Marvel Comics superhero team who has had nothing but bad luck when it comes to feature films. Mr. Fantastic was previously played by Ioan Gruffudd in the first two Fantastic Four films made by Fox, and Miles Teller played a younger version of Reed in the disastrous 2015 reboot.
If this cameo is any indication, it looks like years of fans inexplicably championing Krasinski to play Reed has paid off and Marvel Studios has found the lead actor (and possible director?) for their scheduled Fantastic Four film. And with Krasinski in the role, it seems incredibly likely that his IRL wife Emily Blunt could be on board to play Reed’s wife Susan Storm, a.k.a. Invisible Woman.
Stream Fantastic Four on Disney+