Fan Theories Actors And Directors Actually Confirmed

When it comes to movies and television shows, we've all got our theories about the stuff no one else is noticing — a story's hidden layers, the creator's true intentions, and what the whole thing really means. There's just something incredibly gratifying about getting deep into the weeds of your favorite entertainment and examining the finest details of an intricate story, only to connect the dots on an obscure plot point that takes on an entirely new significance once you hold it up and really look at it from a different perspective. 

Of course, it's then even more gratifying when an actor or director comes right out and tells you that — believe it or not — you were right! Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen, but when it does, you can expect a lot of minds to be seriously blown. Here's a look at some fan theories that actors and directors actually came out and confirmed, offering sweet vindication for some of the most passionate fans of their work.

Anyone who watches Marvel movies was undoubtedly accustomed to the regular Stan Lee cameo. The comic book legend made an appearance in almost every Marvel movie ever made before his passing in 2018. Lee's cameos were always written off as merely nods to the Marvel man, as there wasn't really any canonical way to describe how Lee could appear in so many different places at so many different times. Or was there?

As fans have pointed out, there is actually one way Lee could have legitimately fit into all those films. For it to work, Lee must have been one of The Watchers — a race of aliens who observe and compile information on everything the universe has to offer, while strictly refraining from interfering. But, of course, this would be absurd, and Lee himself even denied it.

Well, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" director James Gunn decided to have a little fun and make it legit. In the 2017 film, Gunn added scenes where Lee is regaling The Watchers with stories of his adventures. The director then confirmed to Radio Times that said scenes were related to the fan theory. "There's a lot of cool stuff that the fans come up with," Gunn said. "A lot of stuff I don't agree with ... But I find the idea that Stan Lee is a Watcher, or that he works for the Watchers, is just a fun little nod to the fans." Lee is even credited as "Watcher Informant," so as far as everyone's concerned, it's canon now.

Remember that epic battle in 2013's "Man of Steel," where Superman and General Zod duke it out? Do you know how many innocent people died during that titanic slugfest? According to director Zack Snyder (via ComicBook.com), "probably 5,000 people or something like that" died in "Man of Steel." After such a massacre, few people could live as though nothing ever happened, and even a Kryptonian like Superman carries demons.

In the first act of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," the Man of Steel saves a girl from a burning factory, and is then surrounded by people dressed like skeletons in celebration of the Day of the Dead, who all try to get their hands on the superhero. As one clever fan going by the name of The Kingslayer noticed (via Screenrant), this scene was deeply symbolic. "The symbolism of Clark being dragged down by the people who died during him and Zod's fight," they wrote, "symbolized by people dressed in skeletons, honoring the dead (maybe that's just my overthinking) ... superduper scene."

Snyder himself took the time to comment "no no that's right" on the original post. And he wasn't just being nice, either. Snyder intentionally wanted to focus on the human cost of these super battles, stating, "It's not just fun to crash around in a city. There's a human price. And I think that's the thing that weighs on Superman."

There's been a long-running theory among fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Peter Parker showed up even earlier than "Captain America: Civil War." As the theory goes, the little kid who dressed like Iron Man and confronted a robot at the Stark Expo in "Iron Man 2" is actually a young Peter Parker. "Iron Man 2" was released in 2010, after all, and everyone's favorite neighborhood web slinger is only in his mid-teens in 2017's "Spider-Man: Homecoming." Furthermore, the aforementioned Stark Expo takes place in Parker's hometown of Queens.

Still, because we never actually get to see the identity of the masked kid in question, it's easy to dismiss this fan theory as just a theory. Making it even more unlikely is the fact that the Spider-Man brand was still, at that time, clamped firmly in Sony's vice-grip.

Luckily, Tom Holland himself stepped in to save the day and confirm this awesome idea as MCU canon. The actor who plays Spidey told HuffPost, "It is Peter Parker." When pressed, Holland doubled down, saying "I can confirm that, that is Peter Parker." When pressed even further, Holland tripled down and spilled the beans. "I can confirm that as of today," he said. "I literally had a conversation with [Marvel president] Kevin Feige only 20 minutes ago. Maybe I've just done a big, old spoiler, but it's out there now. It's cool. I like the idea that Peter Parker has been in the universe since the beginning."

When you think about fan theories, your mind probably jumps to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or Disney. Or "Game of Thrones." It probably doesn't make the leap immediately to "Gilmore Girls." But don't be fooled! The famous 2000s WB and CW show has a hardcore following, some of whom have dug into every minute detail the show has to offer. And with said hardcore digging comes some pretty hardcore fan theories — including one which offered up the idea that the show's main character, Rory, and Luke's chef, Caeser, were classmates.

The actor behind Caesar himself, Aris Alvarado, blew "Gilmore Girls" fans' minds wide open when he confirmed that this wild theory is indeed true. In Season 1, Episode 9, titled "Rory's Dance," we can briefly see someone who looks an awful lot like Caesar chillin' at a table with the rest of Rory's classmates. "That was Caesar," Alvarado declared to the crowd at a 2016 "Gilmore Girls" Fan Festival. "It's funny because [the internet] just discovered that. I've been waiting, I never wanted to say anything [so I could] see who was going to find me one day!"

Consider yourself found, Alvarado. Nothing gets by "Gilmore Girls" fans! Nothing.

Believe it or not, some people believe that the Paul Verhoeven-directed "RoboCop" was nothing more than an allegory concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How folks get that from an uber-violent action flick about a dead Detroit cop who's turned into a killer cyborg is beyond us, but it quickly gained traction. As the theory goes, Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) dies in the line of duty only to be resurrected to save his world.

But what's even stranger is that Verhoeven himself confirmed this theory to MTV a few decades after the film's release. "The point of 'RoboCop,' of course, is it is a Christ story," the "RoboCop" director revealed. "It is about a guy that gets crucified after 50 minutes, then is resurrected in the next 50 minutes and then is like the super-cop of the world, but is also a Jesus figure as he walks over water at the end." Since Christ is the ultimate peacemaker, it's not exactly a surprise that this super-cop might want to emulate the Son of God, but the allegory goes even further.

"I put something just underneath the water so [Peter Weller] could walk over the water and say this wonderful line... 'I am not arresting you anymore.' Meaning, 'I'm going to shoot you.' And that is of course the American Jesus." American or not, Christ is considered a warrior in the Book of Revelation, so Verhoeven might have been more correct than he knew.

Ever since "Harry Potter" first began, author J.K. Rowling has been the subject of intense criticism and controversy. While today's controversies are of a different sort, back in 2007, the fantasy writer revealed that a popular theory among Potterheads was true all along: Professor Dumbledore is gay. Though this isn't touched upon too much in the first batch of novels or films, Rowling revealed this fact at a Q&A back in 2007, around the same time the book series ended.

"In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film," she told her fans (via ABC News), "and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script, saying, 'I knew a girl once, whose hair–'" After being interrupted by laughter, Rowling continued, "I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter — 'Dumbledore's gay!'" Though this didn't affect much concerning the "Harry Potter" books or films, it did play a major role in the Wizarding World prequel series "Fantastic Beasts."

Taking place in the late 1920s and into the early 1930s, the "Fantastic Beasts" trilogy, though not strictly about Jude Law's Dumbledore, details his life and the results of his "tragic" romance with Gellert Grindelwald. With only three out of the reported five films released, we won't know the full story for a while (if ever), but fans were certainly pleased when they discovered that their hopes for the wizard were true.

At the end of "The Incredibles," it's revealed that the baby Jack-Jack has a plethora of superpowers that seem to come out of nowhere. While most supers only have a single power or maybe two, the youngest member of the Parr family has something around 17 known abilities, many of which are further explored in "The Incredibles 2." But given that the other heroes only have one ability each, it's led fans to wonder if young children of supers have a bunch of them at their disposal until a certain age determines which super ability they'll keep.

YouTuber Seamus Gorman asked director Brad Bird in 2018 if the other Parr kids likewise had multiple powers as children. "I mean, the idea of 'The Incredibles' is that you use powers to comment on roles within the family," Bird explained, saying that Mr. Incredible's super strength is due to the expectation of fathers to be strong, just as Elastigirl's powers are meant to represent how moms are generally stretched thin. "The idea of babies is that they're unknown potential ... You don't know!" he added.

Though Bird doesn't explicitly confirm this fan theory, his explanation about how powers work leads us to believe that when Violet and Dash were babies, they too likely had multiple abilities. Of course, once their potential is realized, their powers are chosen for them, and the rest is alternate history.

Just like nearly all of Stephen King's stories take place in the same universe, so too have fans often wondered and speculated the same about the films of Quentin Tarantino. There are a number of Easter eggs in his movies that seem to imply this, such as the Big Kahuna Burger — which appears in "Pulp Fiction," "Reservoir Dogs," and "From Dusk Till Dawn" (which he wrote) — and the Red Apple cigarettes seen in "Kill Bill" and "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood." But it wasn't until 2016 while promoting "The Hateful Eight" that Tarantino would confirm this himself, albeit with a twist.

"There is actually two separate universes," the director revealed on the Australian talk show The Project. "There is the realer than real universe, alright, and all the characters inhabit that one. But then there's this movie universe." Tarantino went on to explain that fantastical projects such as "Kill Bill," "Death Proof," and "From Dusk Till Dawn" make up the fictional cinematic universe that exists as a part of his "normal" cinematic universe. Which films make up the latter have yet to be revealed, but it's certainly an interesting concept.

This all makes a lot of sense when we consider the "Fox Force Five" pilot mentioned by Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace in "Pulp Fiction." Obviously, she's referencing the "Kill Bill" story, which in Tarantino's "real-verse" is nothing but an onscreen adventure, much like in our own.

One crazy fan theory that came out after the release of "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" was that Captain America (Chris Evans) once got together with Star-Lord's (Chris Pratt) grandmother back in the 1940s. After Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) reveals to his cousin Jennifer (Tatiana Maslany) that Cap hooked up with a woman while on tour during the Second World War, fans flocked back to "Captain America: The First Avenger" for proof. Sure enough, there was a strange connection to another MCU flick that most didn't get the first time around: Laura Haddock.

Haddock played an "Autograph Seeker" who looked dreamily into Cap's eyes in the hero's origin flick, only to later be cast as Peter Quill's mother Meredith in "Guardians of the Galaxy," reprising the character again in the sequel. Not only do these two women look identical, but director James Gunn took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to confirm the speculation. "That's Quill's grandma," Gunn said in a now-deleted tweet. "I just made this up."

But later on, Gunn reworked the theory after fans noted that the timeline didn't match up. "Laura's character who met Cap in 1943 would be way too young," he concluded in another tweet. "Meredith Quill was born in late 50's/early 60's." One user then asked if Haddock's character in "The First Avenger" could be Meredith Quill's great-aunt instead, to which Gunn replied, "Sure why not."

Since 2015, a fan theory about the fate of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" icon Captain Rex has circulated around the internet. It all started when the character, now sporting a white beard, appeared in "Star Wars Rebels," set a number of years before "Return of the Jedi." From there, fans speculated that Rex was retroactively the Rebel soldier Nik Sant, who appeared only in "Return of the Jedi" during the Battle of Endor. Future projects seemed to confirm this, with the epilogue of "Rebels" mentioning that Rex was present at that pivotal conflict.

Elaborating on the theory, a 2019 episode of "Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures" shows Rex alongside Han Solo and the Rebels on Endor, something later expanded on in the 2021 children's book "I Am a Clone Trooper." To make matters more confusing, "Star Wars" guru and George Lucas' "Clone Wars" partner Dave Filoni has noted that he believes Nik Sant and Rex are the same guy, saying, "I think the one thing I have really thought about is I really do think that Rex is that guy on Endor. I really do."

Nevertheless, Filoni refuses to change "Star Wars" canon on a whim. "I didn't want to lay it down in stone," he told IGN after the end of "Star Wars Rebels." "I think I left it in a state where you could believe one way or the other."