Nightcrawler’s Time Travel Challenges In X-Men ’97 Season 2 Explained By Adrian Hough

The iconic Marvel mutants are currently enjoying their latest success throughout the summer season.

Following the shocking ending to season 1, X-Men ’97 season 2 is dealing with the fallout as several heroes are spread across the past and future, but must make their way back to the ’90s. However, time travel is easier said than done when faced with threats like Apocalypse, and the introduction of Marvel’s Rama-Tut.

ScreenRant recently sat down with Adrian Hough for an exclusive interview, looking back at his legacy as Nightcrawler that began in X-Men: The Animated Series over three decades ago. With Kurt Wagner back with the team, the Marvel veteran opens up about how the mutant is dealing with the latest challenges of time travel, while also teasing his potential future after X-Men ’97 season 2.

Adrian Hough On Revisiting Nightcrawler In X-Men ’97

ScreenRant: How does the legacy of X-Men affect you as an actor, seeing how people still have so much attachment to the franchise even 30 years later?

Adrian Hough: It’s been amazing to see the response now, because back in those days, we didn’t know that the show was popular. We just knew that we got another season, and another season. But now we get this instantaneous online presence with Instagram and TikTok and all those platforms. Apparently, there were huge mail bags full of fan mail for us that we never got to see.

For a show that almost didn’t get on the air, 30 years later, we have this whole Marvel universe where they’re making live-action movies about the comics. Yeah, it’s super fun, and to find out that a character I play has meant so much to people is a wonderful thing.

Adrian Hough On Nightcrawler’s Adjustment In X-Men ’97 Season 2’s Time Travel Arc

ScreenRant: In the first episodes of the season, Nightcrawler seems more collected than the others about being stuck in the past. He’s awfully chill being sent back in time. What is his state of mind like there?

Adrian Hough: First of all, his spiritual grounding really helps him to deal with it, like, “I guess this is happening now.” Also, it’s because of his sense of humor, which has really come out in X-Men ’97 even though you didn’t see it so much in the original. There were only two episodes back in those days where you did; there was the Nightcrawler episode, and the Bloodlines episode. But now, you really get to see his sense of humor come out, so he’s always making these little, witty quips about Beast, or to the Professor.

I think that’s the way he copes. There’s one scene where they’ve animated him, and he has his hands on his chin and is kind of watching and taking things in. I think his state of mind is that he will do anything for his friends, who are now his chosen family. Blood is blood, but family is a choice, so he’s just going to deal with it. If you notice in episode 3, he’s one of the first ones to jump into the fight. It’s this incredible flying kick he does with sword in hand while wearing robes.

That’s all I can think of. As an actor, I just take it one episode at a time, and I see what’s offered. The story writers and the animators really create the rest.

ScreenRant: Do you think that’s his way of showing that he’s healing from all the rough things he’s been through in his life?

Adrian Hough: I really like that idea. I haven’t thought of it like that, but for years he was shunned and hated, and he was on his own. Now, he has found out that Rogue is his half-sister, and he has the X-Men. You hear, “I believe in the X-Men,” in the trailer. That really makes a big difference, I think, in his life. So, healing, sure, yeah.

ScreenRant: After being associated with this character for so long, how much have you dived into his larger lore over the years?

Adrian Hough: Interestingly, it’s only really in the last couple of years, when we got called back into the X-Men world, that people started sending me [lore]. “Did you know that he’s got lots of girlfriends in one run of the comics?” And he’s a huge pirate and sword fighter in another. I’m finding out as I go, which is kind of fun.

I have started to look into one of the comics that he features in, Excalibur, a little bit more. Every time I come into a session, I’m sort of brilliantly surprised by where he’s going. When I started for season 1, I was basing everything I did on the soulful, very alone-looking, “look in your heart” version. I was warming up that little version of his voice, and then the first thing that happens is the Genosha scene in season 1, episode 5, and he’s jumping around and teleporting in and out of the scenes. The first time I came to that scene, the first day in the studio, the first speech was so theatrical, it’s all unicorns and rainbows. I blame soap operas! But I sort of did that all as one speech.

And then our brilliant voice director, Meredith Lane, very patiently pressed her finger on the button to speak, and she goes, “So, here’s what’s happening. You’re teleporting in and out of the scene,” and it was like a little light went on, and I was like, “Oh, he gets to be fun, he gets to be joyful.” So, this little woo-hoo sound came out of my mouth as I did the next take, and I think that was a take that we ended up using. I would just change my position around the mic each time, as if I was teleporting in and out of the scene, and that’s why you get that electric, vibrating, excited Nightcrawler at the beginning.

Adrian Hough Looks Back On His Marvel Role In X-Men: The Last Stand

ScreenRant: How often do people come up to you now and go, “You’re Jean Grey’s dad?” [in X-Men: The Last Stand]

Adrian Hough: It happens occasionally at the conventions, because I started adding photos of me in various different roles, including Assassin’s Creed 3, where I voiced Haytham Kenway. I put that one down because I realized when I got that role in X-Men: The Last Stand, I didn’t put together that I’ve also been an X-Men!

But people do come to the table to see me for Nightcrawler, and then they go, “Wait, you were in…?” I think that comes with having a 40-year career as an actor, onscreen as well as in voice and on stage as well. It happens a fair bit more now. And also Strong Guy! I’m adding Strong Guy to the mix.

ScreenRant: I’m just imagining you sitting across from Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, delivering a line about Jean Grey’s disease. What was that experience like?

Adrian Hough: Having lived and trained in the UK, and watched theater in the UK for a long time, I had seen Patrick Stewart on BBC and in various shows, and I had seen Ian McKellen on stage, so I was an admirer. There I am, sitting in front of two of my heroes, getting to say that line about her illness.

When I auditioned, I did it with this, “Ooh, gross, I’m terrified,” vibe, and that’s what they wanted. But when I got to the set that morning, there’s a row of executive producers and writers, and the director says, “Do you remember what you did in the audition?” He snaps his fingers and calls to an assistant, who comes over and puts a little VHS into the machine, and he just points.

So, I get to sit there opposite Ian and go, “What about her illness?” And Ian McKellen goes, “You think your daughter’s ill, Mr. Grey?” And then, of course, all the cars in the street start flying around, and the wall behind me shakes. That was super fun. It was one of those little markers that you sort of put in your career, I guess.

Adrian Hough Is Ready For A Live-Action Cameo With Fox’s X-Men In Avengers: Doomsday

ScreenRant: We have this little film called Avengers: Doomsday coming out at the end of this year, and many X-Men are coming back. Would you want to jump into live-action at some point, maybe in the Nightcrawler makeup?

Adrian Hough: I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’ve been in prosthetics. I had four hours of prosthetics for an Apple TV show I did about six years ago, called Home Before Dark. It was one of their first shows, and I had a 30-year age span. I had to play. It was a couple of flashbacks to me being a younger man, and then they aged me up into this 70-something year-old man, so I’m very familiar with the tortures of time. But if you have a wonderful team, which I did, then it’s well worth it. Yeah, I would, in a heartbeat. I would say yes, and jump in.

ScreenRant: It would be cool to see you and Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler tag-teaming.

Adrian Hough: I admire Alan’s work so much. His stance on things, socially and politically, and how open he is about who he is really inspires me. He gave a wonderful haunted look to Nightcrawler in X2. Over the years, I’ve learned to admire other actors deeply, because I know how hard it is to have a career in this industry, and how lucky we are when we are working. But I would jump in a second. The phone call would come through, and I’d say yes, before they finish the sentence.

ScreenRant: When you look at the Marvel movies now, their take on Mutants is leaning into what the animated series did. You guys deserve your due on the big screen at some point.

Adrian Hough: Yeah, that would be nice. But I also respect that they’re standalone stories. We like to see the connections, though. Actually, I had a little tour around Disney’s Marvel Studios a year or so ago, and I met the guy with all the little sticky notes and the pen. He ties together the entire Marvel Universe, so if you have any questions, he’s the guy. I think that if anything ever happened to him, Marvel would be in trouble.

It’s funny when you think back to Larry Houston 30 or 40 years ago trying to get an animated X-Men series together. Nobody wanted it – not one of the kids’ networks or major network wanted it. But he found this woman called Margaret Loesch at Fox Kids and pitched it to her, and she put her job on the line for it. They aired it, their ratings were amazing, and they got 5 seasons. Nowadays, it’s almost unheard of that we’ve got three or four seasons greenlit. Brad Winterbaum was talking about that.

It’s wild now, because there would be no Marvel Universe without Larry Houston having gotten that cartoon started over 30 years ago.

ScreenRant: The X-Men and Spider-Man animated shows were my gateway into Marvel, so it’s hard to imagine what pop culture and the superhero genre would look like if those shows had never happened.

Adrian Hough: There was no real reason back in those days, with what was on television, that they would have produced it. It takes somebody with a spark of imagination, and also with leverage, to make it happen. Success and popularity certainly change from decade to decade, if not month to month, so I understand it seeming like a risk at the time. But having been around a little while, it seems like a slam dunk.

We had this cast and crew screening a few days ago at Disney Studios, since we don’t get to see each other – it’s not like a film set where you get to see the grips and the camera people and the sound, and everybody in costumes. I was with [director] Chase Conley gushing about that sword-fighting scene in 108, and I got to go to one of the animators for Nightcrawler, who also does the scratch voice, and tease him about getting really close. I got to talk to the colorists and people who do these incredible jobs that you don’t see in front of cameras anywhere.

There are people I know who are voicing characters in this show, and I’ll go, “God, that guy doing Cable, he’s really good. I wonder who he is…” And it’s literally Chris Potter, whom I’ve known for decades. There’s something about the animation that changes how you hear it, but I have such admiration for everybody in this cast and crew. It’s a stunning team, and there’s not a bad one in the bunch.

We were in a movie theater, and it actually adds an extra layer to see it on the big screen. It’s almost like if Michael Bay and Martin Scorsese got together and did a film, which was animated by Miyazaki. It’s that kind of effect, and the writing is incredible. It’s just stunning. You’ve gotta go see a screening sometime.

Is Nightcrawler Back For X-Men ’97 Season 3 & 4?

via Disney+

ScreenRant: You’ve already finished recording for season 3, and Brad [Winderbaum] has said that they’re developing season 4. How much do you know about what’s ahead for Nightcrawler?

Adrian Hough: I can’t comment on season 3 at all, but the whole character arc for everybody is just… Hold on to your hats! It’s a whole thing that you won’t be expecting,

ScreenRant: But you’re back for next season, at least, right?

Adrian Hough: I can neither confirm nor deny. I can say literally say nothing about season 3, but I know that Brad Winterbaum has talked about season 4 being in development.

Here’s the other thing: we’ll go in and record stuff, and it’s like a year and a half or two years that go by. I’ll go on to the next job, some television episode or something, and I will forget what’s happened. Then, when I get to watch it, I get so involved in the story. It’s a very convenient thing, so I deliberately haven’t watched ahead. It’s also a good way to avoid leaks, I think.

Adrian Hough Reveals If Nightcrawler Might Alter The Timeline In X-Men ’97 Season 2

ScreenRant: One of the interesting things in episode 3 is a conversation between Erik and Charles about wanting to influence the past to give them a better future. Does it ever get tempting for Kurt to alter something for the good of his own people?

Adrian Hough: I would imagine it does. I would imagine that for anybody it would. He’s somebody who loves his newfound family more than anything, and will do anything for them. But we all have that thing of, “I wish I’d done something different.” In terms of time travel, we all have that feeling of, “I wish I’d told myself this 20 years ago,” but that’s not something I can really speculate about.

That’s really a writer’s question. I just interpret what the writers send me, and I bring my emotions and tools and my own sense of spirituality and philosophy to it as well. It’s a very clever question, but I really can’t speculate, because it could show up, and then they’ll say, “It was a leak!” Or it doesn’t show up, or they changed it a little bit later. That happened during the recording in season 2, where I would go in [to] record a whole scene, and then they’d say, “You’ll have to come back,” [because] they’ve changed the ending of it, or they’ve changed the arc of the scene. Even if I speculated, it either will or won’t show up.

ScreenRant: Well, I certainly hope you’ll show up in season 3, because Nightcrawler means the world to me as a ’90s kid.

Adrian Hough: It always means so much to me to hear that from people who were kids in those days and were influenced by the character, because we don’t know until we hear it. I was at C2E2 in Chicago, and this little girl who was maybe 9 years old walked up [to] the table. I vividly remember she had a blue dress on, and in the smallest voice you could imagine, she goes, “I’ve got six reasons…”

I knew what my job was, so I said, “No, mein Freund, nine!” which is the beginning of the sword fighting, teleporting scene in episode 8. She lit up, and her parents came over. They told me that, as a family, when they need reasons to keep going, one of them will say, “I have six reasons,” and someone else will pipe up with, “No, my friend, nine.”

I’ve had so many wonderful fan interactions, which is a newfound joy for me. But when I hear something like that, how it’s made a difference to a family or a difference to someone personally, and it’s kept them going, that’s a real sense of an extended community. It’s just a wonderful, wonderful thing to be part of. The parents had grown up on the show as kids, and they had introduced it to their kids, who loved the show and loved Nightcrawler. It means a lot, and it’s been one of the privileges of my very long career.

About X-Men ’97 Season 2

“X-Men ‘97” Season 2 continues with the heroic mutant team of X-Men, divided and thrown across different eras in time as they struggle to navigate their return home. Meanwhile, back in the 1990s, suspicious foes and new strains of mutant intolerance are on the rise in the wake of the X-Men’s absence.”

New episodes of X-Men ’97 season 2 premiere on Wednesdays on Disney+.

Release Date

March 20, 2024

Network

Disney+

Directors

Jake Castorena, Emi Yonemura, Chase Conley

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