If impressions could kill, Ross Marquand would have eradicated The Walking Dead’s zombie hordes long ago.
His skillset was in fine form during his panel at Supanova in Melbourne, as he rattled through Matthew McConaughey, Patrick Stewart and more with ease, but not everyone is a fan apparently.
“I met Patrick Warburton from Family Guy, you know [Joe Swanson]. We were recording an episode and the casting director said, ‘Hey Ross, this is Patrick. Oh, Ross does an impression of you, do you want to hear it?’ [Patrick] was like, ‘Sure, let’s hear it.”
Marquand pauses for a second, then lowers his voice to deliver a perfect impression.
“He just looked at me – and he’s got those eyes that are always kind of squinting – and he goes, ‘I don’t sound anything like that.’ I was like, ‘Aw, okay,’ and then kind of ushered my way out and was like, ‘Noted. I will never do an impression of anyone ever again.”
You can hear Marquand’s impression of Warburton in the below video.
It’s a good thing he continued with them, as impressions are what helped him land the role as Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, taking over the MCU role from Hugo Weaving.
While he describes it as his “dream role”, it’s Aaron from The Walking Dead that’s his favourite role.
“Aaron is such a great guy to play, especially in the last couple of seasons because he has always been so nice and so diplomatic, and I love that about him, but I’ve asked Scott Gimple and Angela King, who are our showrunners, to infuse more darkness into him,” Marquand said.
“I think at a certain point, especially after being in the apocalypse for many years and losing all the people you love and care about, there’s gonna be a switch. There’s got to be a switch, because if he’s too nice and too diplomatic, you almost wonder what his journey is.
“And so for me, getting that extra bit of darkness into Aaron these last couple of seasons has been wonderful – losing his arm certainly helped that along. He’s become a great leader whose sole priority is protecting his daughter, protecting the communities and fighting anybody that would threaten them.”
After Andrew Lincoln departed The Walking Dead, some fans started referring to Aaron as “the new Rick Grimes” – the group’s new leader – but it’s a sentiment that Marquand doesn’t quite agree with.
“I certainly understand the comparison because of the beard, the loss of an arm and everything as that’s very in-line with comic book Rick, but I think we’re all leaders in the show. And that’s not me trying to be diplomatic, but each one of us – whether it’s Rosita or Eugene or other characters – there’s so many leaders in the show already, and I don’t think there’s any replacing Rick or Andy.
“Andy the actor was basically like Rick – a nicer version of Rick, I should say, because Rick kind of went off the deep end towards the end there. Andy is arguably one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life and I just think what he brought to that role – the sincerity and the compassion and the hard work ethic that he brought to the show – has been unmatched by anybody on that show.
“It would be cool if Aaron could do some of that and take on more of a leadership role at Alexandria because that’s his community, but we’ll just have to see. Your guess is as good as mine; I have no idea. You know, they don’t tell us much on this show, so we’ll find out where it goes next year as soon as you do as well.”
Lead image: Ross Marquand at Supanova 2020 – Gold Coast. Photo by James Presneill, Elementice.
