Of all the big surprises in Avengers: Infinity War, the one that caught me the most offguard was the return of an early Marvel villain we hadn’t seen in a long time. I know I shouldn’t, but here’s one final chance for you to turn away in case that giant SPOILER warning in the headline wasn’t obvious enough…
Okay, so I was completely taken aback by the sudden unexpected return of the Red Skull as the guardian of the Soul Stone. The villain hasn’t been seen since Captain America: The First Avenger, as the first wielder of the Tesseract. It was clear to me that it wasn’t Hugo Weaving back in the role, the voice sounded different and the actor swore to never do it again, but I didn’t know until much later it was The Walking Dead‘s Ross Marquand doing his best impression.
Now Marquand has opened up to EW about the surprise role, and his thoughts on a possible return of the Red Skull…
“The biggest thing that Marvel wanted to do was come as close to the iconic role that Hugo Weaving portrayed seven years ago and pay homage to it while also giving it a new flavor. Once Red Skull touched the Tesseract, he goes into this intergalactic astral plane for 70 years. And as the Russo brothers pointed out to me — because I was trying to do a straight voice match to Hugo’s performance — they said, “You know, he’s been by himself essentially in this intergalactic prison of his own making for 70 years. He’s going to sound a little different. We want him to have this kind of ethereal almost ghost-like quality to his voice, so please try that.” I think the reference they might have given is Yoda-esque. His ambition has brought him this great pain, but also this great wisdom, and I think that’s what I tried to imbue that performance with.
“I think the main thing I wanted to get across is that this Red Skull is quite remorseful. He does feel a certain degree of shame and loss, and he’s conquered by his own ambition, really. It’s very much like Icarus; he flew way too high — literally because he touched the Tesseract and got launched into space — and he got way too ambitious and lost sight of his humanity, and now he feels genuinely remorseful about that. And there is kind of a forlorn energy to him. It was coming across in the dialogue, and I just really wanted to honor that.”
“…I think that I would obviously love to play that role again anytime. It’s such a rich character, especially now that he’s gone to this intergalactic hellscape and he’s found his own prison there — not to quote Creed. That was a Creed song, right? But he’s a changed man, and I don’t even know if he is a man anymore. He’s almost like this ghostlike deity, and he’s at the service of the Soul Stone now, and his sole purpose is to essentially guide people to this, but you have to wonder: Is there still a part of him that does have ambition? I don’t know. It would be really cool to see where that character goes. But that’s really a question for all the folks at Marvel and the Russo brothers and the writers. I certainly couldn’t speak to that.”
The Red Skull has proven notoriously hard to kill in the comics, and it stands to reason the same would apply on the screen. With the Soul Stone now in Thanos’ possession we could see Red Skull possibly given physical form and returned to Earth. Who knows? Maybe if/when the Captain America mantle is passed to another the Red Skull can be his first enemy?
