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Inde Navarrette career biography now has a major new chapter after Marvel Studios announced at D23 that the 25-year-old actress will play Rogue in its upcoming X-Men reboot.
The casting caps a fast rise that has moved Navarrette from supporting television roles to a breakout horror performance and now one of Marvel’s most recognizable mutant characters. It also gives her a rare second connection to superhero television and film after several seasons on Superman & Lois.
The Associated Press reported from D23 that Navarrette was officially announced as Rogue alongside Adam Driver as Mister Sinister and Christopher Abbott as Charles Xavier. The film is scheduled for 2028, making the role the biggest franchise commitment of her career so far.
What makes the announcement interesting is how quickly her profile changed. A few years ago, Navarrette was best known to television viewers as Sarah Cushing. In 2026, the success of Obsession pushed her into a different level of attention and turned her into one of the year’s most closely watched young actors.
Early television roles gave Navarrette a steady foundation
Navarrette’s first notable screen work came through television, where she learned to work inside ensemble casts rather than entering Hollywood as an immediate lead. That background gave her time to build experience before the pressure of carrying a major film arrived.
Her role as Estela de la Cruz in the final season of 13 Reasons Why brought her to a large Netflix audience. The part was relatively brief compared with the show’s established leads, but it gave her visibility in a series that had already become one of the platform’s most discussed teen dramas.
She then joined Superman & Lois as Sarah Cushing, the daughter of Lana Lang and Kyle Cushing. The CW series gave Navarrette much more room to develop a character over time and placed her inside a superhero world without making her a costumed hero.
That experience links neatly to Wowplus coverage of Bitsie Tulloch’s life away from her Superman & Lois role, since both actors were part of the same series during a period when the show tried to balance family drama with comic-book spectacle.
Obsession turned her into a film breakout
Navarrette’s career changed most dramatically with Obsession. The horror film gave her a lead role and required a performance that could carry both emotional intensity and genre tension. Critics began treating her less as a familiar television actor and more as a film performer with awards potential.
The movie’s commercial performance amplified that attention. Rather than becoming a small genre success that disappeared quickly, Obsession developed into one of the year’s major horror stories and kept Navarrette in interviews, festival conversations and casting speculation through the summer of 2026.
That momentum also made her a natural subject for Marvel rumors. Before D23, she had publicly discussed meeting with X-Men director Jake Schreier and said she was open to joining the franchise. At the time, fans speculated about several characters, including Mystique and Rogue.
Wowplus has already covered the wider X-Men reboot through Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey casting at D23. Navarrette’s announcement adds another young actor with strong recent genre credentials to the same ensemble.
Playing Rogue changes the scale of her career
Rogue is not a minor Marvel character. She has been central to X-Men comics, animation and previous films, and audiences already have strong expectations about her personality, powers and relationships with other mutants.
That creates a different kind of challenge from Obsession. A horror role can be judged mostly on the film itself. A famous comic-book character comes with decades of history, earlier screen versions and a fan base that notices small creative choices.
Navarrette’s casting also places her inside a film built to launch a new era of the X-Men within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That means her performance may matter beyond one movie if Marvel decides to build future stories around the team.
For context, Wowplus has followed Marvel’s long franchise planning before, including the expanding MCU release calendar. Navarrette is now entering the kind of interconnected system where one role can affect several future projects.
Her career has moved across genres without a fixed image
One reason Navarrette’s rise has felt quick is that she has not been locked into one type of part. Teen drama, superhero television, thriller material and horror have all asked for different kinds of performance.
That flexibility may help with Rogue, a character who can move between action, humor, romance and darker emotional material. Rogue’s powers make physical contact dangerous, so many of her stories depend as much on isolation and trust as they do on superhero battles.
Navarrette has also spoken in recent interviews about wanting to keep choosing projects that genuinely excite her rather than staying inside one genre. Her interest in returning to horror suggests that Marvel will not necessarily replace the smaller or stranger projects that built her reputation.
There is still a long wait before audiences see her version of Rogue. The X-Men film is planned for 2028, and major franchise projects can change during development. What is confirmed now is that Marvel has chosen Navarrette for one of the reboot’s core roles.
The Inde Navarrette career biography therefore reads very differently in 2026 than it did even a year earlier. She moved from dependable television work to a breakout horror lead, then converted that momentum into a place in one of Hollywood’s largest franchises.
The next phase will show whether Rogue becomes the role that defines her public image or simply another step in a career that has already resisted easy categories. Either way, D23 has made her one of the clearest examples of how quickly a strong breakout performance can change an actor’s options.
Isiagu Tobby
Wowplus editorial contributor.
