X-Men '97 Stars Ross Marquand and Matthew Waterson on Which Live-Action Mutant They Would Like to Play

Professor X and Magneto break down their ideal live-action X-Men roles.

By Russ Burlingame

During the recent 2024 Nashville Comicon, Comic Book Men star Ming Chen hosted an X-Men '97 panel featuring stars Ross Marquand and Matthew Waterson. During the panel, the question of moving to live-action came up -- and while the stars, who voice Professor X and Magneto, respectively -- don't think they'd ever get those gigs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they dug through the X-Men files in their heads to come up with live-action parts they might be able to tackle.

"I always say Wolverine, but I think Hugh Jackman does such a good job of that I wouldn't even touch that," admitted Marquand, who previously played Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. "I wanted to play Moon Knight as well, and then Oscar Isaac knocked that out of the park. So I think -- I've said this before, but Omega Red, who is like Russia's answer to Wolverine. He's such a badass, and he's such an untapped character, I really think that would be a lot of fun to play."

On the downside, he noted, "I'd have to gain like 100 pounds of muscle" to pull it off.

"I've always really liked the comic accurate version of Sebastian Shaw," Waterson said. "I can't tell you exactly why, but that character has always fascinated me. He was in our show a little bit, but that character has always fascinated me, and getting to do a comics-accurate version of him, I think would be a blast."

Sebastian Shaw previously appeared in Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class, played by Kevin Bacon. Of course, the extent and nature of his powers was pretty significantly downplayed there, with Bacon serving as the sort of posh villain Vaughn is famous for.

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In X-Men '97, following on the heels of the classic '90s X-Men animated series, "Storm and Wolverine try to continue the X-Men. Magneto comes in and wants to step up for Charles Xavier. Sinister comes in to try to end the X-Men once and for all."

You can see the first season of X-Men '97, streaming on Disney+.

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