Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame actor Ross Marquand reveals he filmed his Red Skull scenes in one day.
A lot of fans know actor Ross Marquand’s face from his role as Aaron on The Walking Dead; however, they may not know that he played Marvel’s Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame – and currently voices Charles Xavier in X-Men ’97.
Marquand took on the role of Red Skull from Hugo Weaving, who played the villain in Captain America: The First Avenger. It was a pretty seamless change: Red Skull’s scenes as the Soul Stone’s keeper in Infinity War and Endgame are now some of the most iconic (and debated) scenes in The Infinity Saga finale – but did you know they were all filmed in a single day?
ComicBook.com’s Phaze Zero podcast got a chance to sit down and speak with Ross Marquand recently, and he revealed the story of filming his Red Skull scenes in a day.
“It was a helluva of a way to work, and I really like that style of filming, Marquand explained, after describing arriving on set and being given his top-secret scenes as Red Skull. “I think we finished it in eight hours – both films, back-to-back, in one day. I mean that’s unheard of.”
After seeing Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame it’s wild to think that all of those Soul Stone scenes with Red Skull were filmed in a day. Those sequences carried some of the heaviest weight of each film: Thanos sacrificed Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone (in Infinity War), and Black Widow sacrificed her own life to give Hawkeye and The Avengers a chance to undo The Snap that killed off half the universe (in Endgame). The Russo Bros. may not have finished all the major stunt work needed to pull off the Soul Stone sacrifices on the same day; more likely they filmed all the dialogue scenes “The Stonekeeper” required before the stunt sequences of the sacrifices were shot.
Either way, if you check out the interview segment in the video above, you will hear Ross Marquand further describe how he shot all his Red Skull scenes with absolutely no makeup or facial prosthetics, just the system of dots needed for CGI face-swapping. He also filmed the Infinity War scenes without Thanos or Gamora.
Some fans may hear all that and think it’s the heart of what they imagine when they hear the term “movie-making magic”; others may see the kind of conveyor belt-style of filmmaking that Marvel Studios has become known for.
One thing that’s undeniable: Ross Marquand’s scenes as Red Skull are now iconic parts of the MCU – and are a pretty nice notch in the actor’s belt.
You can stream Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame on Disney+.
