Bryan Singer’s upcoming GIFTED pilot for FOX casts “leader of an underground network.”

Showrunner Matt Nix and pilot director Bryan Singer have cast their first mutant for GIFTED, Fox’s upcoming series set in the X-Men universe. According to Entertainment Weekly, the untitled pilot cast Blair Redford (Switched at Birth, Satisfaction)

Redford was cast as Sam, described as “the strong-headed Native American leader of the underground network.”

The drama focuses on two ordinary parents who discover their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins up with an underground network of mutants and must fight to survive.

No further details on the show or Redford’s character are available, though Nix teased that it’s “sort of designed to side-step questions like, ‘Where is Wolverine?’” Nix teased. “There is a certain amount of those characters that I can use and I’m using some of those. Other characters I’m inventing but everything is invented with a nod to the existing mythology.”

Singer will direct the pilot episode (allegedly in Dallas, TX) later in March.