Maxance Vincent
Before reprising her role as Rogue in Marvel’s X-Men ’97 from X-Men: The Animated Series, actor Lenore Zann worked as an elected official in Nova Scotia, to which she was re-elected three times, before jumping to federal politics in 2019 by winning a seat through Justin Trudeau‘s party. However, her time in the House of Commons was short-lived, losing her seat during a snap election in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not knowing what to do after twelve years of political involvement, Zann explained to Awards Radar on Zoom that she had received an email from a friend saying that a casting director from Disney was looking to contact her. Not knowing if this was true or not, Zann was quickly contacted by Meredith Layne of Disney, who was casting for a new animated series:
“She called me and said they were very interested in putting me down on tape for an audition for a new show. She sent me the sides of a script. I read it. It was Rogue. Even if there was no name, no title, I thought, “Wow, these are Rogue’s lines.” I did my best Rogue impression since I originated the character. A few weeks later, she contacted me again and said they wanted to bring me in for a Zoom meeting with producers Beau DeMayo and Charley Feldman. Once I did the reading on Zoom, Beau broke down as soon as I had done it and said, “Lenore, we’re all going stir-crazy here. We love your voice. We love you. Would you please come back and play Rogue in this new show? And I said, “You had me at hello, sugah,” and I was back.”
Rogue’s arc is the most compelling of the entire series and one which takes a very dark turn at the end of the fifth episode, as she loses the two people whom she loves the most, Magneto (Matthew Waterson) and Gambit (AJ LoCascio). This profound change in her arc was explored by the actor, who wanted to make audiences feel Rogue’s pain in losing the people she adored deeply:
“For an actor, it’s a gift to get scripts where you can double down, get enmeshed, and dig down deep for the emotional content that you need to be able to play those scenes. My main goal was to do it authentically in my voice to connect with the audience and make them feel Rogue’s pain, specifically loss from losing somebody they love deeply. In real life, I had been already grieving for the last several months because my young, beautiful 17-year-old niece, Maia, had been having a battle with cancer, and she died. I was deeply grieving her loss and made a conscious decision that I would channel all of that grief, angst, loneliness, and emptiness and put it all in my voice for that scene in episode five so that the audience would hear it and relate to it. Even the reverberations of the tones I was using, I would jog them and make them feel their own feelings. If anyone felt loss or grieving, that would unleash those gates so they could feel them and hopefully get some healing. It was good for me. It was therapeutic for me to do that, and I also felt it would be good for the people watching the show.”
In exploring that love triangle between Rogue, Magneto, and Gambit, Zann explained that she was the originator of a line in episode five that recalled something Remy had said to her before the dance she had with Magnus:
“Rogue is also very lonely. She goes through life being afraid to let her guard down because if she lets her guard down and allows herself to fall in love with anybody, she’s afraid she will kill them. She must always maintain a sense of keeping herself together and not allowing herself to fall into any emotional state with someone. So when she meets Magnus, back in the day, he is somebody who she could look up to with the way he talked about a mutant future, a place where they could all be themselves, be accepted by society, and have their own art, music, and writing. I think she fell in love with him because of that.
When she discovers that they can actually touch, that’s a bonus. Years later, he returns, tries to be a good guy, and wants to put his past behind him. Rogue also has to put her past behind her because she was a villain in the beginning, too, before coming over to the X-Men. They seemed to have found each other, and she feels it’s important for her to help build this new world in Genosha, as he puts it to her. But in the scene when she floats down from the ceiling with her beautiful gown. They have that very sensual dance and touch palms; like Romeo and Juliet, you see the sparks flying. They then kiss, and at the end of it, he’s expecting her to say, “I love you, and I can’t wait to be with you for the rest of my life.”
Instead, she says, “Thanks for the dance, sugah, but Remy was right. Some things are deeper than skin.” That is something Remy said earlier to her. When I went in the studio to do that scene, there was another line that was written there, and I asked Beau I could change it and do something different. He said, “Sure, go for it, let’s here.” And that’s what I said, and they all went, “Yeah, that’s the one.” I’m really proud to see that it still lives and breathes.”
During our audio conversation, seen below, we also discussed stepping into the recording booth again to voice Rogue, if she expected the character to take such a dark road, particularly in the seventh episode, how the fan response to the show resonated with her and what was the most rewarding aspect in returning to Rogue for X-Men ’97.
You can listen to my full conversation with Lenore below and see all episodes of X-Men ’97 on Disney+ today:
[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]
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