It’s Anthony Ramos’ Time to Play the Villain in Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’

Anthony Ramos is officially entering his villainous era with his role in Marvel’s new series, Ironheart.

Having fallen in love with musical theater in high school, it wasn’t until he got a scholarship to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy that he decided to take acting “to another level” and get “serious” about it as a career. “Once I got into school, it’s cliché, but I was like a kid in a candy store,” the 33-year-old actor tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was learning new things. I never did ballet before. I had never done a musical theater history class. I had never taken an acting class. It was my first voice lesson.”  

In just a few years after he graduated, Ramos made his Broadway debut as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the Tony-winning musical Hamilton. That same year, he landed his first onscreen role in two episodes of Younger.

Now, a decade later, Ramos has made a name for himself in Hollywood thanks to his starring roles in Twisters, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and A Star Is Born and the film adaptations of Hamilton and In the Heights, just to name a few. However, there’s one thing he had yet to accomplish prior to this year: a “real villain” role. But now he can say he conquered that with his role as the Hood/Parker Robbins in Ironheart, opposite Dominique Thorne.

Below, Ramos opens up about his preparation to play the Hood, his experience doing voice work for the animated films The Bad Guys 2 and Bob the Builder, whether he wants to return to Broadway in the future, working with Ryan Murphy and Kathryn Bigelow on upcoming projects and his perfect day off work.

What was your initial reaction when you learned you were going to be joining the Marvel universe?

The coolest part was being on a Zoom with Ryan Coogler, Chinaka Hodge, Kevin Feige, Zoie [Nagelhout]. Just being on the Zoom with them and talking to me about the project and teaching me the project and telling me, hey, there’s this character called the Hood, this is what he does, this is kind of like what we’re thinking for him. It was a surreal moment honestly. I was like, “Yo, am I really on a call with like Ryan Coogler, one of the greatest directors of all time, like Kevin Feige, he is Marvel, Chinaka is an incredible writer, Zoie is a great producer. Just on this call with some beast in the game. And they were showing me sketches of him from the comics, and they were like, “Obviously Parker Robins is in the comics and it’s set in New York, but this was set in Chicago. And you’re Puerto Rican, so that’s different from the guy in the comics, which is fine, we don’t care. He’s still got the same powers, the hood is the hood, and we just want to explore what it will look like creating this character with you.” So I was just so excited! 

How did you prepare mentally and physically to take on the villainous role of the Hood/Parker Robbins?

It is the first real villain [I’ve played], because we shot this in 2022. I had played kind of a bad guy in this movie called Honest Thief that I did with Liam Neeson and Jack Courtney back in 2018, but I never played like a Parker. Also just being in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and knowing these are his powers: He levitates, he shoots magic bullets, he goes invisible. He does these things and just exploring what we can do with fight choreography, like how we could expand on his character. Again, moving the character from New York to Chicago, there’s a massive Puerto Rican community, like making him from Humboldt Park. Just small things like that and really paying attention to what’s already there and then seeing where there was a little bit of room to expand ‘cause it is a TV series and we do have a length of episodes to tell the story. 

Is there a specific scene as an actor you’re most proud of and excited for viewers to see?

There’s one scene that comes to mind and Parker has his own layer, he has his own place where he works, and he’s got this scene on his own with the kind of powers that be that gave him the hood, and he’s feeling a bit confused and having this back and forth with this invisible person or whoever that gave him the hood that’s not there, but he can feel it there. And he’s confused by something that’s just happened and he thought he had more control than he actually did, and it was a really cool scene to do. Pretty emotional and it was powerful. It was dope. 

Do you hope to do more with this character and even just Marvel overall in the future?

I would love to expand with his character, knowing that Robert Downey Jr’s coming back as Doctor Doom, and we know in the comics that those characters kind of overlap and stuff like that, so seeing if there’s any possibility for any overlap with Doctor Doom would be really cool. Everything is real in the Marvel Universe, you never know what what they plan to do and how they plan to do it, but I’d love another shot to just expand on Parker a little bit. 

You also returned to voice Mr. Piranha in The Bad Guys 2, coming out later this year. Can you talk about your experience doing voice work for an animated movie?

Animation is one of my favorite things to do in this world of acting and shit. It’s just so much fun, because you go in there and you see some sketches of what they’re thinking about the character looking like or they’ll show you the sketch of a scene that’s already written out, and they’ll show you like a picture of them running out of the bank and then here’s a picture of them jumping off of that building and then here’s a picture of them hopping in the car and then here’s where Mr. Piranha laughs. So you’re only seeing pictures and photos, but you don’t really know what it’s going to come out like until after you put your voice down. And it’s me and the director, and sometimes you get to do it with other actors if everybody’s available to be there at the same time and you can feed off of each other. We had about one or two sessions for the second movie and you get to be in the room with everybody and everybody’s just vibing, everybody’s going back and forth and just riffing and shit that’s not even on the script we’re just coming up with. … Sometimes it’s so hilarious, like I can’t even believe where that just went, that just went so left, and then it makes it in the movie. … There’s just these endless possibilities with animation, you can really just do anything you want. 

You’re also voicing the iconic character Bob the Builder in the upcoming animated feature. How excited are you for that project?

I was super honored and excited that they asked me to do it. I think that with Bob, it’s been so many years where we haven’t seen a newer version of this guy. I don’t think there’s ever been a movie about the village, so like I’m like, for the kids growing up, how can we create something that pays homage to the original, but do something that feels fresh where kids who are watching it feel like I’m watching something for the first time. And even want adults who are familiar with it to feel like, wow, this totally feels new, even though Bob the Builder, that IP, has been around for so many years. 

Having had so much success with Broadway as well as screen acting, do you have a preference and would you like to return to the stage in the future?

I hope to return to the stage. I’ve been seeing quite a few shows lately, which has been really inspiring, you know, I feel like I always get this jolt of inspiration when I go to Broadway or just go see theater in general, like watching actors get on stage and give it their all for an hour and a half to three hours or however long the show is. There’s nothing like it! Having done it and knowing what that feels like and then being able to just enjoy it and appreciate it as an audience member and appreciate it in a different way. And it motivates me to get back on stage, you know, I think there’s no harder thing to do as far as in the entertainment business. I mean, I’ve never done stand-up comedy. I feel like maybe stand-up [would] be No. 1 on that list (Laughs), but a close second gotta be Broadway. Putting a Broadway show together and then doing it every night, eight shows a week, I’ve not done anything as tough as that still in my career. Ten years since I’ve been in Hamilton, and still I would say that and maybe one movie I shot in the middle of COVID because of the circumstances and having worn like a 30-pound spacesuit, and the movie never came out (Laughs). 

You also have several more projects in the works, including Ryan Murphy’s The Beauty, and Kathryn Bigelow’s currently untitled project. What has it been like working with these creative masterminds?

It was really a blessing to work with Kathryn, and she’s one of the greatest directors of all time. She said something super awesome to me that I’ll never forget. We finished a take and we were shooting in Iceland. I had just gotten off of an overnight flight, and they’re like, “OK, we got to wait to see if you’re gonna drive to the other side of the island or if you’re gonna fly because we have to see if the weather conditions are good enough for you to fly.” And if you do fly, you’re gonna go straight to set. If we drive, then you gotta shoot the next day. So I was like, “Oh shit!” I wasn’t even expecting to go straight to set. I thought I’d shoot the next day, but nonetheless, the weather was good enough. We hop on this little nine-seater plane, go to the other side of Iceland, get off the plane, go straight to set, I change and then boom, we shoot this intense-ass scene. And I was so tired and I was so delirious, but I think the fatigue and delirium helped me in a way. My brother sometimes tells me, “Bro, sometimes when you’re the most tired, you give me your best takes.” But Kathryn calls cut, and she’s like, “That was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in my career.” I was like, “What?” I thought she was playing. She was like, ‘That was phenomenal. We got it!” I’ll just never forget that look on her face. I didn’t even watch playback or anything, but it was just really cool to get props from her like that. 

Ryan’s amazing! We just did the upfronts, and Ryan Murphy’s mind is so incredible and his imagination just runs like far and wide. I text Ryan after the upfronts — they put together a trailer for the show, and we’re still shooting it right now, so when you’re in it, you have moments where you’re like, “Yo, I feel like what we’re doing is super dope but you don’t really know, right?” — and I was like, “Ryan, I just wanna let you know I’m grateful for this role because truly this is some of the most fun I’ve ever had doing anything in my whole career and my life.” And he was like, “I really love you in this part, and I feel good about this show.” It’s just cool to know he feels that way. He’s so involved and it’s just nice to be actually working with Ryan. 

If you have a free day off work, what’s your perfect day off look like?

You know what I like to do, honestly, I’ll be traveling a lot. When I get days off, especially if I get a string of days, I’ll be out. I live in Miami, you know, I’m shooting in New York, but any chance I get, I go back down there. If my friends are like, “Yo, let’s go to whatever,” I’m like, “Alright, we out.” But also on days off, my family is opening a business in New York, a bar in Brooklyn, and so I help them with that. So it’s cool to do something that’s not acting sometimes too. Lately, we try to read these scripts for either a job that could happen or something that probably isn’t realistic, but something that looks interesting. I’m writing a musical right now, too, any free days I get off, I try to work on that. 

It’s been a decade since your first onscreen role in Younger, and you’ve accomplished so much since then. What have you learned about yourself during this time?

There’s never been a time that I didn’t have a good time, but I especially make it a point to have a good time on set, because we get to play make believe, like this shit is all made up. And we have to put on these costumes and say these lines and do all this shit, and you get paid for it. And genuinely, I feel like going to work life stops when I’m there. Obviously it’s still going, but it just feels like we’re in another world now. I think when I first started, I was really scared too. I didn’t go to film school. … But being inexperienced and just going for it, there are some parts that I miss about that too. I feel like I was super fearless back then, but I think that I’m kind of trying to bring some of that back now. … Just remember, just because you can say I’ve been here, you haven’t been here. Like it’s a new job, it’s a new part, it’s all new. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing it, every job is different, every day is different, every character is different. So it’s like you gotta open yourself up to whatever is going on that day. But the one thing I think I have kept from when I started is that kind of openness. 

If you had to describe what makes Anthony Ramos, Anthony Ramos, what would you say?

There’s nobody on this planet that’s like me. There’s no one that talks like me, there’s no one that walks like me. You can find similarities in different people, but at the end of the day, I’m me. What makes me me too is that because of God and my family, I was taught that whatever you do, you give it your whole heart. Approach it with grace, approach it with gratitude, you know, with humility in your heart, and just do your best to be your best. That’s what makes me me, you know, I’m Anthony from Bushwick, from the projects, from 230 Grove Street, and there’s only one me.