Joss Whedon has chosen someone few people likely expected to play the main villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron. James Spader, who became a sensation thanks to Steven Soderbergh’s debut feature Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and who has played roles in a diverse slate of projects in film (Secretary, Lincoln) and television (Boston Legal, The Practice), will play the character. Official info is below.

This will surprise a lot of people, I think. Thanks to the teases that link the creation of the character to Tony Stark, many assumed that Ultron, a mad artificial intelligence housed in an adamantium robotic body, would be an evolution of the Jarvis AI voiced by Paul Bettany in the three Iron Man movies and The Avengers. That’s obviously not what’s going on, and at this point we’ll all have to start coming up with new theories about just what Spader’s role will entail.

It’s a wild casting choice, but at this point we can almost count on Marvel and Whedon for some surprises. They’re not locked into any established lists when it comes to casting, that’s for sure. (It’s worth mentioning, too, if perhaps not particularly important, that Spader and Robert Downey, Jr. worked together decades ago on Less Than Zero.)

Here’s the report via Marvel.com:

James Spader will face off against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as the villain in Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the sequel to 2012’s record-breaking “Marvel’s The Avengers.” The Emmy Award-winning actor will play Ultron in the Avengers’ much anticipated return to the big screen from writer/director Joss Whedon. The film comes to theaters on May 1, 2015.