Voltron’s Jeremy Shada Discusses Lance’s Friendships and Rivalries at Emerald City Comic Con

Last week was a whirlwind. Not only did Emerald City Comic Con grace downtown Seattle for four days, but “Voltron: Legendary Defender” also dropped its fifth season on March, 2! A panel was held in honor of the new season, and Voltron fans flooded the main stage to get a glimpse of the cast and crew who came to visit. For more about the panel, you can check out my breakdown here.

Jeremy Shada, the iconic voice of Lance, was gracious enough to spare a few minutes in his crazy schedule to discuss season five with me! If you haven’t watched the fifth season of Voltron yet, I suggest you save this reading for later as it does contain some spoilers. Otherwise, enjoy the Q&A and the awesome photo-op pic I got with Jeremy! (He’s obviously far more photogenic than me…razzle dazzle, I guess!)

Lance has always been the funny guy, that’s his thing. But in the fifth season, he kind of developed into a more serious character. Are we going to see more of that maturity come out, especially between him and Shiro or Allura?

Jeremy: Oh, 100 percent. Yeah, basically we’ve just scratched the surface of, like, all those things too. Especially with whatever the next season is dropping, there’s a lot that builds off of all those things. And it’s interesting to have Keith kind of being out of the group for a while and off fighting with the Blade of Marmora, being a space ninja basically…there’s like a little bit of a void there until Lance gets to fill some of those qualities and pick up some more maturity. And they just have been doing this long enough now that he is more serious about it and they do see the stakes of what’s actually happening.

You know, he’s come close to death a number of times now and so, you know, there’s jovial times but he’s all like “oh! This is actually all, like, real!” It’s not like the beginning where they’re just like “whoa, I just have a cool lion and I’m gonna go fight some stuff, it’s great!” So, just everyone, they mature, they grow…that will definitely continue happening with [Lance].

And the relationship, the bond like with him and Allura will continue to grow. Especially with Lotor in the mix, it’s like then…he sort of like protects them and stuff. He’s very skeptical of Lotor and that’ll continue on. His skepticism will continue in that department for sure, and obviously there’s a lot more we’ll see next season.

Continuing with Lotor because he’s such a huge part of the season—

J: And he has SUCH gorgeous hair!

He does! But Lance obviously has great distaste for Lotor. So, if you could write any interaction between those two, what do you think you’d want to happen?

J: Um. They have some really cool moments coming up. It’s always funny, any scenario where, like, Lotor is doing something and…in a weird way, it takes a little of the same tone that, like, he would have had with Keith early on, in the sense that, like, he wants to outdo him maybe. Or not be so shown up Lotor, who’s very smart, very suave and is very charming. And so any of the scenes where, like, Lance gets to try and take him down a peg is always very interesting. I would do stuff with that.

And it writes itself because their personalities are already there. There’s obviously skepticism, there’s a little bit of jealousy, probably, because Lotor is, you know, he’s very intelligent. He’s very smart. He’s very all these things, there’s a little bit of that in there. And so, addressing those, I think at times Lance will probably look like an idiot, but, you know, he might be vindicated in the future.

With Lance being a funny character, and I’ve noticed on Mr. Student Body President that Tyler is also a pretty funny character…how do you think Lance and Tyler would get along if they had to work together?

J: [laughs] Oh, gosh, it would just be a train wreck probably. I mean, Tyler’s smarter, he’s more intelligent than Lance for sure. But they almost have the same foil in that Tyler is too…his downfall is that he wants everyone to like him and wanting to be popular, that’s always his downfall. Any time he messes something up, it’s usually due to that.

And Lance is kind of similar in the sense that he always wants to be seen as like “I’m very suave” and “I’m cool, guys, I’m awesome!” But they’re both kind of…they’re both kind of dorks, actually, deep down. So, they’re actually, in a lot of ways, really similar, which is really, really weird. They would probably get along well, but whatever they’re trying to accomplish they would probably fail disastrously.

Does any of that dorkiness come from you though?

J: Yes, yes of course, that’s just me! [laughing] No, I’m pretty relaxed and chill in real life. I don’t get very embarrassed easily or very awkwarded out super much. That’s the fun thing about acting and being these characters is being able to do things that aren’t yourself. Even with, like, Lance. He’s very, like, flirty and very, like, suave and always hitting on someone, it’s very like, um…that-that’s funny to me because it’s so not even me at all. In real life I’m just not that way. And that’s what’s fun to be about those characters is playing something that is different from yourself. And it’s fun because you know people that are like those characters, so you just kind of are embodying the people that you’ve met that are like those characters. And you’re like okay, I know what this person is like, I can do that.

Switching gears a little bit…earlier today you were saying you’re a Star Wars fan. Further on in your career, do you think there is any Star Wars character that you would love to play either on screen or as a voice actor?

J: A Gonk droid. Yeah, just, uh, just a little like—you see me come by in one frame and I’m like “that’s me!” [laughs] No, honestly, I would happily be any Star Wars character. I love that universe, love all of it. Ideally, you know, it’s every boy’s dream – and girl’s! – it’s everybody’s dream, period, to want to wield a lightsaber and, uh, have a lightsaber duel. Anything that allows me to do that, I would be happy to do that.

Do you know what your lightsaber color would be?

J: Hm…um. I mean, it’s Dark Side, but like…red is always awesome, red is super dope. But if I could choose one that’s like not already used a lot, I’d probably go with a yellow lightsaber. Because they do exist in the universe, but we haven’t seen them very much, so I think that would be cool.

Time ran out rather quickly, but I have to say that I am 100% sold on seeing or hearing Jeremy in a Star Wars role, even as a GNK droid! True to his word, he has a very relaxed and happy-go-lucky demeanor, even during the hustle and bustle of a convention.

Jeremy was careful not to give too much away about season six, but just knowing that Lance’s mature behavior will continue to grow is enough to give any Voltron fans butterflies in their tummy. It sounds like a friendship between Lance and Allura will continue to flourish, and so will the rivalry between Lance and Lotor. The latter may end up looking a lot like Lance’s relationship with Keith in season one, and that seems to imply that the relationship between Lotor and Allura may strengthen as well.

But, to be clear, this is all speculation. Jeremy was kind enough to give us some insight into Lance’s character and the interactions we might see next season, but we will not know anything for sure until season six airs on June 15. We are so grateful to have gotten this chat with Jeremy, so please be respectful and keep all quotes in their original context!

What are your thoughts about the possibilities for Lance in season six? Did you expect Jeremy to choose a different color for his lightsaber? Give me a shoutout on Twitter to let me know, and keep an eye out for further Voltron updates. Season six of “Voltron: Legendary Defender” will hit Netflix on June 15, 2018!