JP Karliak digs into how Marvel’s X-Men revival made Morph non-binary, what good queer representation looks like, and how he gave Marvel his all.
Voice performance has become isolating work over the years — these days, for an actor like JP Karliak, a day “on set” is completed from a home studio, and notes come in over Zoom calls. But the goals are the same: find the perfect sound to match a character, and relentlessly chase the perfect take. Karliak has done voice work across the animation and video game spectrum, and is no stranger to IP demands. He’s been in everything from The Boss Baby: Back in Business to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, where he played Batman’s nemesis, Joker. Taking over the role of Morph in Marvel Animation’s X-Men ’97, voiced in the original series by actor Ron Rubin, put him under high pressure from nostalgic fans. Still, alone in the room, he found it: his own pure voice.
“My natural speaking voice doesn’t sound all that different from Ron’s original portrayal,” Karliak tells Polygon, “[and Morph] has a new look, he’s changing. And all these characters are going through all of this plot. For me, it was just sort of like, Why don’t we just sit him in this grounded space, and not slap a character voice on top of it?”
Along with giving Morph a character redesign, the X-Men ’97 writers evolved them into the animated property’s first non-binary character. Karliak, who identifies as genderqueer, was pleased at the change. In the 1990s, using he/they pronouns was less commonplace, but having Rogue make a point of properly addressing Morph in 1997 fits right into the show’s approach to doing whatever feels emotionally right, continuity and era be damned.
“We didn’t fly around and shoot lightning out of our fingers [in 1997 either], so whatever!” Karliak says. “I think the representation is still incredible. And I don’t think it takes away anything from who Morph is. Morph is on a gender journey that will unfold as time passes and he goes through the eras of terminology that we’ve lived through already.
