X-Men ‘97: The X-Men’s Powerhouse Has Given a Powerhouse Performance this Season
Rogue has been a fan-favorite for years, but with the debut season of ‘X-Men ‘97’ wrapped up, Lenore Zann gave the already layered and tragic character extra Emmy-worthy layers.
This article contains spoilers for X-Men ‘97 season 1.
For those of you reading this who may have grown up with the internet your entire life, try and picture a time when we, the all consuming public, didn’t necessarily know every move that a celebrity made. Some celebrities, in fact, enjoyed anonymity, a word long lost in today’s world when it comes to entertainment journalism.
Believe it or not, there was actually a class of actors who were so anonymous that people rarely even knew what they looked like, yet they were an integral part of our childhood. Oftentimes these performers perforated our Saturday mornings, and brought to life characters who would shape our future. That era of anonymity is long gone for voice actors though, and while we have to respect their privacy, the silver lining is they are rightfully getting the recognition they deserve more and more.
It may have taken nearly 30 years for Lenore Zann to get to this stage, despite being an icon to 90’s babies, having voiced “Rogue” in X-Men: The Animated Series, and now returning to that role in the critically successful X-Men ‘97. Zann’s performance has stood out, as Rogue has had an extremely challenging journey in the premiere season of the reboot, and Zann has more than proven herself worthy to the challenge.
“Well, to be honest, as an actor, I live for emotional roles” Zann recently told FilmSpeak’s Michael Winn Johnson. “I love the extremes, I love being able to plummet those depths, and soar to the heights. So this was a gift for me to be able to do that with this character who I know and who I really love a lot”. Even though audience members are giving voice actors the same amount of respect we would any other performer, it’s interesting that we don’t necessarily see them in the same light when it comes to major awards. Yet having witnessed Rogue’s (and therefore Zann’s) arc over these past few months, it is easily one of the best voice acting performances in the past year, and yes, that should mean a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding voice-over performance.
Be sure to check out the full video interview with Lenore Zann (article continued below):
The emotional depths that Zann has delved into came predominantly from the fifth episode of the season, “Remember It”. It was a layered, action-packed and emotional roller coaster where the X-Men saw the mutant utopia of Genosha decimated in an act of terror, where hundreds of mutants were killed. Among them, fan-favorite X-Man Gambit (voiced by AJ LoCascio), sacrificed himself to take out the massive Sentinel sent to raze the mutant sanctuary. The experience was very personal for Zann, not only to say goodbye to a partner in the actors who have voice Remy Lebeau, but in a much more cathartic manner.
“Of course, with the death of Remy, who has been Rogue’s flame for so long, it was devastating. But I was really glad to be able to have an opportunity to express my own grief because, as I've said, in a number of interviews, I was already grieving the death of a young, my young niece, [Maia] who had passed away several months before at the age of 17 from cancer”.
Zann goes on to say, that like any good artist, she used that experience to fuel her performance. “So I decided to put all of that on into my role, all of that grief and angst so that other people who might also be feeling sad or grieving people that they've lost, and so they could hear my voice, and it would resonate emotionally with them, so that it might give them an opportunity to feel their feelings and have a kind of cathartic experience. I'm hearing from a lot of people that that is exactly what's been happening”.
Rogue is also a unique character in the sense that she, perhaps more than any other X-Man struggles to fit in, even when she’s a part of this heroic team. Her powers, which prevent her from skin-to-skin contact with another person less they end up in a coma or worse create a real sense of loneliness within the Southern Belle powerhouse.
Other X-Men characters certainly struggle with racism, xenophobia and hatred in society, but Rogue’s struggle is a much more subtle, personal battle. It is no easy task to present that internal battle as a voice actor, but Zann once again draws on personal experience to relate to her character.
“Well, I was born in Australia, and we moved to Canada when I was eight” Zann recalls. “So I had to leave behind all the kids I had grown up with, and my family, my dad had four brothers and sisters. So we had a big ‘Zann clan’. I had to leave all of that behind, and start life again, in a place where I didn't know anyone. I had this Australian accent, too. It was so strong that a lot of kids would ask me, ‘what language do they speak in Australia’? It was hard. I had to keep reimagining myself and trying to fit in and it was lonely”.
But Zann says it was her artistic side that really got her through the tougher parts of her youth. “I retreated to a world of imagination” she says. “I wrote poetry. I wrote short stories. My dad helped with that, because he was a writer as well, and he encouraged that. So I found the world of the imagination was my friend. Once I became an actor, I was suddenly traveling the world, oftentimes alone. So I can really relate to Rogue in her search for where to belong”.