Warning: This article contains a major spoiler for Avengers: Infinity War. Don’t read any further unless you’re prepared to learn it.
Like the WWE Royal Rumble it sometimes resembles, Avengers: Infinity War had a few surprise entrants. And none, perhaps, was more surprising than the Red Skull, last seen being disintegrated (or so we thought?) by the Tesseract. Instead, as we learn in Infinity War, the mystical force transported him across space to become the guardian of the Soul Stone, which he himself is unable to possess due to having nothing left to love that he can sacrifice for it.
“But wait!” savvy Marvel fans will say. “Hugo Weaving said he wasn’t really interested in doing that again! How did Disney persuade him? Was it just big bags of money?” Indeed they did not. As Gizmodo reports, Red Skull was played by a Hugo Weaving impersonator. And here’s the tell: it’s a great impression of Hugo Weaving, but Weaving was himself doing an impression of Werner Herzog in the role. The new Red Skull doesn’t quite go that far. Don’t worry about his career prospects, though—the imitator in question is Ross Marquand, also known as Aaron on The Walking Dead, and a talented mimic, having previously been a celebrity impersonator on Conan, Robot Chicken, and Animation Domination Hi-Def. And hey, maybe that new Lord of the Rings TV series will need a new Elrond!
Did you know it was another actor, or did Marquand successfully fool you? Let us know in comments.
Images: Marvel Studios
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