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By John Peters (Originally published at Killer Movies)
Previously on Remembering the X-Men: Animated Series…we talked to Eric Lewald, the lead story editor on the series about how the episodes went into production from the writer’s perspective. We have also been talking to Sidney Iwanter, the Fox network executive about what went on behind-the-scenes. Now it’s time to talk about the cast. Finally, for the first time on DVD, X-Men: The Animated Series comes roaring to the format in all of its glory in season sets (dubbed volumes). You can almost hear Shuki Levy’s score now, the pulsating theme song that is so memorable even a decade after the last episode aired. To mark this special event, I'm taking a look back at the ground-breaking series, through the words of it’s creators, writers, and voice talent in Remembering the X-Men: The Animated Series. This is part three as told by Rogue herself, Lenore Zann, with the Fox network executive Sidney Iwanter. Casting the X-Men Early on, there were issues with the cast that were originally brought in to voice the X-Men, as Sidney Iwanter explains: “It was awful. During the script read, it sounded like it was done by a group of amateurs from high school. I did something I had never done before, and have never done since, I fired everybody.” After Sidney Iwanter demanded a new cast for the series, Karen Goora, the casting director for the series, offered to try the Toronto Theater Community. Second only to the New York Theater Community in terms of quality actors and actresses, Sidney marveled at the idea. “These people are actors and these are stories worthy of actors, not personalities. They are going to emote, stretch the dialogue,” says Sidney of the actors they were hiring. “We started getting some major theater actors, Shakespearean trained from England type of actors. That’s how we got this team together; Cedric Smith (Professor X) and David Hemblen (Magneto), these guys are Shakespearean actors! Who would’ve thought of using guys like that? When I saw Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen doing Xavier and Magneto in the films, I said, wonder where they got that idea?” “Do you know what Cal Dodd did before X-Men?” questioned Sidney Iwanter. “He was a jazz singer! What does Hugh Jackman do? He’s a singer and dancer on Broadway! It’s like we found these people, who didn’t just have good voices, but had depth in their resume. That’s totally different than what you have today. Studios are always hiring top dog actors. You can listen to the show when you close your eyes, and you can hear the acting; the turmoil, the humor, the terror. It just wasn’t a bunch of deep voiced guys and sweet women that just spoke words. The recording sessions became acting sessions.” It’s me, Suga, Rogue! The character of Rogue debuted in Avengers Annual #10 (1981) as a villain, although a few years later an appearance in Uncanny X-Men changed this minor character into one of the more popular female X-Men. Her character was so popular, Bryan Singer used her in his films like Jubilee was used here in this series. I think we can chalk her popularity up to Lenore Zann, who voiced the character in all five seasons of X-Men: The Animated Series. Lenore Zann on how she was approached and cast as Rogue: “Well, I played a lot in movies and television. My agent back in 1992, and I played a lot of southern characters with a southern accent like that, called me and said “Look, Lenore, I don’t know if you’re interested, but there’s this animated series casting for a character that needs a sexy, husky, voice, who has a southern accent. As far as I’m concerned you’re perfect.” I’d never done animation before and the auditions were such and such times, and I couldn’t make it because I had something else. So I missed the first few auditions, and in fact I missed the next two to three sets of auditions, because I was mostly doing TV and theater; I was just busy every single time, and my agent called me back a month later and said “they’re having final callbacks for this thing and they have not found the voice they’re looking for and that’s because you’re the one. I just know in my heart that you’re the one for this character. So please could you just go?” So I said “okay.” I went that time and I walked into the booth to read with the producer Sid (Iwanter). I had this little paragraph and the microphone was on and I said: “You know, I remember when I was 13. Had me a boyfriend, so I kissed him. Poor boy was in a coma for three days. I’d absorb their strength right into me. I don’t know Beast, what makes us the way we are anyway?” That’s all I said, and silence. Then someone went “where the did she come from! That’s what we’ve been looking for!” They went ballistic in L.A., and they basically hired me on the spot. That’s how I got the part.” Rogue has a unique set of powers, but ones that keep her at a distance. “Those are the roles I play. She’s strong, she’s independent, she’s sexy, but she’s also lonely and she has an Achilles Heel in which she can never be touched,” explains Lenore Zann on Rogue’s set of challenges with her powers. “Therefore, she can never really fall in love or be attached to somebody, so she’s always alone. There’s elements like that in all of the characters I have ever played. I played Marilyn Monroe at the age of 19, plucked out of oblivion and put on stage in a rock opera. It made me a huge star at the time, it was on the front page of every newspaper. You know, here’s this little girl from Nova Scotia and being Monroe, I just blew everyone’s socks off. When I put on the wig and the make-up, I did not study anyone of her movies, I was 19 and didn’t really know quite who she was at the time. It was 1980 when I did the role, and she wasn’t as big as she is today.” One of the key traits to her character is the flirtatiousness of Rogue with Gambit. Lenore talks fondly of this relationship, and her friendship with Chris Potter, who voiced Gambit for almost all of the character’s appearances. “We were all together for the whole series, we were in the room together. So it was like a radio play and of course, in the scripts there is a definite attraction between Gambit and Rogue. In fact, I think Gambit is madly in love with Rogue. One episode he tries to kiss her and it almost kills him. There’s that time when Mr. Sinister captures them and puts them on an island, and takes away their powers. For the first time, they have a night together, I think they were chained to the wall or something, and it leaves it like dot dot dot, you know, so that they can actually touch each other and he won’t die. It doesn’t leave it to the imagination what they did that night.” “In the room, we were all totally into our characters and just having fun,” remembers Lenore. “The hardest role for them to cast was Storm. In the first few weeks of our first season they must’ve went through five different actresses. They kept getting fired, and we were all nervous. With Chris (Potter), it was getting that accent. At first they wanted a strong accent, and when he did it, he did it well, but they said it was too much, bring it down, bring it down. It became very, very subtle.” “All of us became extremely close. We remain friends to this day, even though we’re all over the place,” says Lenore of her cast mates. It’ll be the first time there’s a superhero elected in office! Lenore Zann is currently into politics and will be elected into office at the time of this writing. A defender of the arts, despite her current success in politics, the show and the character of Rogue will always be with her. “I’m still getting tons and tons of fan mail. I get a lot of mail from people in the war, like this one guy who loved, loved, loved Rogue, she is his favorite character. They have all the videos to watch as they wait to be called into duty and asked please write back to me and asked for an autograph. I really hope they can come home safe and Rogue is thinking of them. That makes a big difference to them.” “The story is universal that anyone can relate to, just like with these shows now, like X-Men, Iron Man, Watchmen, these are universal questions and stories, people relate to on a very deep, primal level. That’s why personally I think they remain so popular,” Lenore concludes. “People just recognize my voice. People are more excited for those characters, from comics and cartoons, than they are about movie stars!” laughs Lenore. In case anyone of you were wondering, she sounds exactly like Rogue. To be concluded…. Come back for part four, the last one of this multi-part look at Remembering the X-Men: Animated Series as Jubilee herself, Alyson Court joins us!
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