It’s a great time to be an X-Men fan — the comics behemoth has seen a resurgence in public consciousness thanks to the revival of the much-loved X-Men: The Animated Series. Ever since its announcement, X-Men ’97 has gathered fans, old and new, and the voice cast has played a pivotal role in winning the fans over once again.
Veteran actor George Buza, the voice of Hank McCoy/Beast, was at Toronto Comicon sharing in the love of the show and the X-Men universe. Buza definitely knows how to work a crowd of X-Men fans as he greeted his audience with “Hello, fellow mutants”, before asking us who thought Magneto was right. Quite a few cheers went up for that. As we wait for season 2 of X-Men '97 to finally arrive, let's take a look at Buza's experiences on the show and with the character of Beast.
Buza on being an X-Men fan joining the X-Men universe
When Buza was asked to read the script of a mysterious project titled “Project X”, he knew immediately what the show was about — the X-Men. He remembers when the first X-Men comic came out in 1963; the comic was sat beside Superman, which Buza bought every week. He thought the X-Men looked interesting, and that’s where his association with the series began.
Buza’s love for the outcast mutants came not just from the stories, but from his experiences as a bullied child. He was a “big kid”, and he faced a lot of bullying. X-Men was like wish fulfillment for Buza, because “what kid didn't want to be a superhero? What kid that didn't get bullied in school, didn't want to be a superhero that he could defend himself. And have superpowers over all of those people that did him bad.”
Being a superhero comes with its own challenges. The one time young Buza fought back, he learned the other child’s father was a lawyer. At the mere age of 10, Buza was arrested simply for defending himself. The judge, a reasonable man, took Buza aside, and that was when Buza got his first, as he calls it, “Beast lesson” — people would always find a way to blame him for starting a fight, even if he was the one fighting back. Instead of using violence, the judge suggested Buza find a way to defuse the situation in the future. Buza took that lesson to heart, and it became the key to how he shaped Beast for the X-Men: The Animated Series.
Beast was supposed to have a much smaller role in X-Men: The Animated Series
In the first season of X-Men: The Animated Series, Beast was imprisoned for a significant part of the season. When Buza learned the direction of his character’s storyline, he was gutted — he’d become invested in being part of a universe that had been with him since childhood, but now he was, ostensibly, being written out.
In fact, Buza explained that was the plan. Beast wasn’t supposed to be a regular cast member. But, Buza surmises that the studio got a lot of fans asking after Beast, so he was given a longer lease on life. Which gave Buza the opportunity to deliver many of Beast’s popular one-liners and erudite dialogue. As he said, Beast is a “nerd who can kick a**.”
And, of course, Beast plays a much more significant role in X-Men ’97. Buza also revealed that around the time the cast were informed about the revival, he’d been thinking about giving up on acting. His live action days were behind him, but in general, he’d resigned himself to hanging up his acting boots. But when the offer to return to Beast came, he knew he had to jump back in. “I don't think that I've ever really loved a character as much as I've loved the Beast,” Buza said. More than that, the X-Men shows address the world we live in, in a way that many other shows don’t. And this appealed to Buza as well.
The cast were unaware of fans’ love for X-Men: The Animated Series
The X-Men: The Animated Series cast had little knowledge of how beloved their show was back in the 1990s. There wasn’t any internet, so it’s not like the cast had access to fans. But the show kept getting fan mail; according to X-Men: The Animated Series’s producers Julia and Eric Lewald’s book, Previously on X-Men, the studio was piled high with fan mail, but these were shared with the team making the show, not the voice actors.
Worse still, the cast were left hanging till the very last moment every season about whether the show was going to be renewed, and whether they’d be coming back. They had no idea what an impact their show was having on fans — that people’s lives were being changed, even saved. The voice cast were putting in their best work, without any audience feedback or reward, for the sheer love of their characters.
It wasn’t till the Lewalds took a group of cast members, including Buza, to a convention in Texas, which was when they realized just how much the fans had loved X-Men: The Animated Series. Since then, Buza has particularly enjoyed being at conventions and getting to hear directly from fans about their fondness for the show.
After 50-plus years in the business, and over 100 credits to his name, Buza never expected that X-Men: The Animated Series would be the show that people would keep asking him about. But Beast has become his legacy. Buza took his painful experiences of being bullied and learning to deal with that to turn Beast into an unforgettable character who fights with his intellect, and only resorts to brute force when there are no other options left. And that’s an important message to take away, especially in today’s world. In Buza’s own words, playing Beast “was probably one of the greatest gifts in my career.”