Ross Marquand Wants to Play Moon Knight

Ross Marquand says that he would like to play Moon Knight in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite having already played an iconic villain in the franchise.

The actor is perhaps best known for playing Aaron in The Walking Dead. This year, however, he surprised many by appearing as the Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War; few expected the character to come back, having seemingly disappeared forever during the events of Captain America: The First Avenger. He was played by Hugo Weaving in that film, with Marquand taking over when he decided not to return.

According to comicbook.com, apparently, however, Marquand wants to go from diabolical Nazi villain to insane Jewish hero. He made these comments to Adventures in Poor Taste, where he explained his love for the character’s bizarre psychology and interesting take on comic book origins.

“Going into the dissociative identity disorder, really calling in to question if everything happening is all in his head, is he actually a vigilante killer or did he die in Egypt? It brings up a slew of questions, and that to me has never really been delved into in any comic book character before,” he explained.

In the comic books, Moon Knight is Marc Spector, the wayward son of a rabbi who alternately became a boxer, soldier and mercenary during his adulthood. At one point, he is badly beaten by a thief and left to die in the Egyptian desert, and apparently has a vision of Khonshu, the Egyptian moon god. Khonshu revives him with superhuman abilities in return for him fighting crime, and Spector/”Moon Knight” creates several new identities, including a millionaire (with money made investing his mercenary payments) and a taxi driver.

Over the years, however, the comics have deconstructed and reexamined this fairly basic origin story, as Marquand mentions. Spector treats his fake identities like real people and makes up more as needed, and Khonshu’s own existence is questionable at times. Many have compared Moon Knight to Batman, but if so, the character takes the whole “Batman is as crazy as the Joker” angle and runs with it, hard.

Kevin Feige has mentioned that there are plans to introduce Moon Knight down the line, so Marquand could get his wish to play the character. The MCU has double-cast a few characters, albeit minor ones, and Red Skull wears enough makeup to probably hide a resemblance to Marc Spector.