There was a recast for Avengers: Infinity War, and you may or may not have caught it, and if you did, you may have been stumped as to why it was done. Obvious MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW!
The return of Red Skull was a surprise to most, as Marvel Studios and the Russo brothers were great at keeping secrets about the film. What also may surprise you is that the actor did in fact, change.
We first saw Red Skull played by Hugo Weaving, in Captain America: The First Avenger, and we watched him die by the Tesseract. However, it turns out that he didn’t die and was just sent to a different place, Planet Vormir, where he became the guide to the Soul Stone, but this time was played by Ross Marquand.
The appearance of Red Skull and the heavy use of prosthetics for the character’s face may have left you leaving without even noticing the change in actors but we are here to tell you, it happened and there is a very specific reason why. Weaving didn’t want to, as he said back in 2012:
“I [signed a multi-picture deal] for Captain America. I think the tendency, with those films, would be to probably not bring a villain back. They might for The Avengers, but I didn’t think I’d be in Captain America 2 or 3. I don’t think Red Skull will be there. And it’s not something I would want to do again. I’m glad I did it. I did sign up for a number of pictures and I suppose, contractually, I would be obliged to, if they forced me to, but they wouldn’t want to force someone to do it, if they didn’t want to.”
He added:
“I think I’ve done my dash with that sort of film. It was good to do it and try it out, but to be honest, it’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by. As an actor, to do all sorts of different films is great. It stretches you in different ways. But, I increasingly like to go back to what I used to always do, which is to get involved with projects that I really have a personal affiliation with.”
It’s not very often you find an actor who played such an important role in a Marvel film, not truly like comic book style films. It seems that he just didn’t want to take part in this sort of acting job again. Marquand did a great job as Red Skull and fooled many about being a new actor all together. We surely wont miss Weaving after knowing how much he disliked the character, as we want the actors to love what they are doing – which is how we end up with a film like Infinity War.
Did you notice the difference in actors? Do you wish Weaving reprised the role? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!