Lenore Zann reveals how she harnessed her grief from a personal loss in order to heartbreakingly deliver Rogue’s X-Men 97 lines.
Rogue has meant a lot to many people over the years, which is something that is not lost Lenore Zann, who voiced her in the orginal 1990s’ series, X-Men The Animated Series, and has since returned to the role for 2024’s X-Men ’97.
During our recent interview, she reveals how she used her own grief to deliver one of the most heartbreaking lines in all of televisions. Lenore also discusses why she loves Rogue so much, and how she relates to her.
Using Her Own Grief
Spoiler warning: In X-Men ’97, Gambit sacrifices himself to save mutantkind, something that absolutely devesates Rogue. She loves him with all of her being, even though she cannot show it, because they cannot touch. At the end of the episode, as it fades to black, Rogue says “Sugah, I… I can’t feel you,” while holding him.
Lenore Zann delivers this heartbreaking line in a way that destroyed fans around the world. She explains in this interview, that she harnessed her own grief in order to bring such reality to it.
“I had been grieving for the last eight months or so before I did that episode because my sweet, young, 17-year old niece, had passed away from cancer,” she says, “It was gutting. When you lose a child, it’s awful. And my poor sister and my mum and dad, it was their only grand daughter. It was devastating.” Lenore details that she had been grieving for months already, and when she got the script and read it, she knew that she did not have to do any emotional homework, she already had been doing her homework.
She told herself that she was going to channel all of that into her performance and make people feel it just with her voice. That was the goal. “I felt that if I could do that, people, others who had lost someone, and many people had lost someone because the pandemic, and all the wars that are happening right now, seeing on the death and destruction. It’s just overwhelming. I think so many people are grieving, and they may not even know that they’re grieving. I felt that if I could do a performance like that, and let them feel it in my voice, and that it resonated with something inside of them, they would feel the feelings, and it would let the gates gush open. And they could release all of that tension and angst. And in doing so, hopefully, they might be able to find some healing, too.
Lenore Zann
Lenore Zann says that it was definitely helpful and therapeutic for her to be able to do that, and she is hearing from fans that it also helps them. “That’s why I also felt some responsibility to go online afterwards and touch base with the fans,” she explains, “How are you doing? I’m seeing your little notes that you’re gutted, and you’re broken, and you’ll never get over it. You will.”
Lenore Relates To Rogue’s Loneliness
Zann admits that Rogue has always reminded her of her own loneliness and desire to belong. “When she gets kicked out of her home and she goes wandering around the world going, where am I? Who do I belong to? What am I here for? What’s my purpose? Where do I go?,” she confesses. When Professor X reaches out to her, and tells her that they have a home where she belongs, and she is finally with her tribe, that is when Lenore realized she was missing out on that, for a long time.
Our X-Men community is my tribe. We belong to each other. We need to keep reminding ourselves that it’s okay to be different. Isn’t that wonderful? So your hair is blue and pink and green tomorrow, who cares? Great. Let’s live and let live and love and let love and we need to keep spreading that message because the naysayers, the haters, are out there and they’re trying to drag us back into the 12th century. We’re not gonna go.
Lenore Zann
Be sure to watch the full interview with Lenore Zann for more discussion on Rogue, such as what it means to Lenore to have the support of her fans, how social media has allowed her to connect more with them, and what it was like coming back to the role after so long.
All of X-Men ’97 season 1 is now streaming on Disney+, with a second season on the way. Keep an eye out for Lenore Zann’s memoir, A Rogue’s Tale, coming in the fall.
NEXT: X-Men ’97 Composers The Newton Brothers On Playing in the Marvel Sandbox
About X-Men ’97
Marvel Animation’s X-Men’97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.
X-MEN ‘97 is streaming exclusively on Disney+.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.