Avengers: Infinity War featured a lot of huge surprises but one of the biggest came when the Red Skull made a surprise appearance as the guardian of the Soul Stone. While watching the movie, it was hard to say for sure who was playing the Red Skull; was it Hugo Weaving - who previously said he has no interest in returning to the role - or someone imitating his voice? It was hard to say as it sounded so much like him but we've since learned that he was played by The Walking Dead's Ross Marquand.
Now, the actor has spilt the beans on being chosen to replace Weaving and it sounds like Joe and Anthony Russo actually wanted him to bring something a little different to this version of the villain.
"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."
Now that Thanos has the Soul Stone, we don't actually know what became of the Red Skull or what the deal is with his seemingly newfound cosmic abilities. Asked if he knows anything about returning to the role possibly in Avengers 4 or another Marvel movie, Marquand played coy but offered some of his own insights into the character's thought process and how he could return to the MCU down the line.
"I don’t know. I can’t speak to that, and 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."
It would be pretty cool to see Steve Rogers cross paths with the Red Skull in Avengers 4 and even better if they were to do battle in a future Captain America movie. We'll just have to wait and see for now but The Walking Dead star did a fantastic job so seeing him return to the role would be no bad thing.