X-Men '97's Matthew Waterson Talks Stepping Into Iconic Magneto Role

Matthew Waterson talks about the "stress" of following in David Hemblen's footsteps.

By Jamie Jirak

The penultimate episode of X-Men '97's first season was released this week, and it was another big one for Magneto AKA Eric Lehnsherr. In X-Men: The Animated Series, the Master of Magnetism was voiced by David Hemblen who passed away in 2020. In the reboot, the iconic villain is voiced by Matthew Waterson. ComicBook's Phase Zero podcast recently did a spotlight episode featuring Waterson, and the actor talked about some of Magneto's biggest moments of the season in addition to stepping into the role. 

"There is definitely pressure, and there's definitely some stress," Waterson admitted. "One of the things that was really nice, in talking with Meredith [Layne] and Bo [DeMayo] and Jake [Castorena] and everybody, as we were working through it, they said, 'The end of the original series has this big shift, with where Charles goes, and the decision that Eric makes at the end of it, in order to try and help his friend.'"

"They said, 'There's this big shift, and we're continuing through that with how we go into this new season, with the decisions and the choices, and the things that Eric is trying to do. So that makes for a shift in his overall outlook,'" Waterson recalled. 

"'So what we're really looking at is trying to make sure that if somebody sits down and watches the show from '92 to '97, and they just bowl straight into this one, that it doesn't sound like a totally different person, but there should be some little difference in him, because his whole outlook is kind of shifting, or at least, he's trying to shift it. So we want the voice to sound like the same person, but maybe that they're coming at things from a slightly different aspect.'"

"And that helps take a little bit of the pressure off me," Waterson explained. "Because following somebody like David, who did such a phenomenal job, and is so beloved, there is a stress to that. And there's always, you have to reconcile yourself to, 'In an ideal world, a third of the people love what I do.' A third of the people are like, 'Eh, it's fine.' And only a third of the people are saying, 'You've destroyed my childhood, and I will forever hate you.'"

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"So the hope is, if you can get those first two-thirds to be bigger than two-thirds, and that last one to be smaller than a third, then that's kind of successful. And fortunately, it seems like people on the whole have responded really positively, which has been lovely, and has been a huge weight off. Because following David was always going to be a pretty daunting task."

You can watch our interview with Matthew Waterson here. The season finale of X-Men '97 drops May 15th on Disney+.

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