Ross Marquand
Ross Marquand is an actor, born 1981.
Ross Marquand is an impressionist who turned that skill into an unusual career: he is the actor productions call when a voice already exists in the audience's head and somebody has to reproduce it convincingly. That is a different job from acting a part, and it is much less forgiving, because every listener is checking the work against a memory.
He has done it repeatedly. He voices Red Skull and Ultron across projects connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Ultron in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the Infinity Ultron of What If...?, and he plays Professor X in X-Men '97, a role attached to a version of the character that a generation grew up with. He has been Han Solo in more than one LEGO Star Wars special. In each case the brief is roughly the same: sound like the thing, then find enough room inside it to actually perform.
The role that is entirely his own is Aaron on The Walking Dead, which he played from 2015 to 2022. Aaron arrives as a recruiter, all careful friendliness, and hardens over the years without ever becoming one of the show's grim men, and that slow adjustment is the best sustained work Marquand has done. Invincible has given him another long run, mainly as Immortal and Rudy, where the animation lets him be pompous and funny at once. Live-action leads have been rarer, though Amira & Sam and Descendent show he is perfectly capable when a camera is pointed at him.
Movies (9)
TV (9)
Where to start with Ross Marquand
The place to start is The Walking Dead, because Aaron is the part he originated rather than inherited, and the change in the character across those years is genuinely well acted.
For the voice career, INVINCIBLE is the best showcase: two very different characters, no impression to hit, and a show that gives its supporting cast real scenes. X-Men '97 is the nostalgic pleasure and the most technically impressive thing he does, since Professor X has to sound familiar and still carry an entirely new story. What If...? is where his Ultron gets the most to do, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the blockbuster footnote to it. Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head and LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy are the fun ones. If you want him on camera without a costume or a microphone booth, Amira & Sam is a small, warm independent film.