7 A-List Actors You Forgot Voiced Marvel Characters

The Marvel Cinematic Universe permanently fused specific actors to superhero identities at a cultural level few franchises had previously reached. For instance, Robert Downey Jr. became so inseparable from Tony Stark that his eventual departure from the franchise felt like a genuine cultural event. The same fusion applied to Chris Evans, whose decade of commitment to Captain America transformed the role into a moral compass for the entire franchise, and to Chadwick Boseman, whose portrayal of T’Challa transcended genre entertainment entirely. These associations were reinforced by consistent casting across more than 30 films, an unprecedented global marketing apparatus, and combined theatrical grosses exceeding $30 billion. The result is a roster of characters so visually anchored to their performers that audiences can’t imagine iconic heroes and villains being played by anyone else.

Voice work works differently. When a celebrated performer steps into a recording booth, they don’t get the same broad recognition as live-action roles grant them. As a result, the history of Marvel animation and the MCU’s own supporting roles is filled with Oscar nominees, Emmy winners, and globally recognized stars who delivered performances that passed almost entirely without notice—not because the work was unworthy, but because they were hiding behind animated personas and CGI constructs.

7) Clancy Brown as Surtur (Thor: Ragnarok)

Clancy Brown has spent four decades building one of the most recognizable voices in Hollywood through landmark roles in The Shawshank Redemption and Highlander, alongside hundreds of hours of animation work that include the enduring Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants. In Taika Waititi’s 2017 blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok, Brown voiced Surtur, the ancient fire demon whose prophecy of Asgard’s destruction drives the film’s central mythology. The character appears primarily in the film’s opening sequence before returning for the closing act, with Brown’s thunderous baritone establishing Surtur as a genuine cosmic threat capable of leveling a civilization. Thor: Ragnarok grossed $854 million globally, meaning an enormous audience listened to Surtur’s pronouncements without registering the distinctive voice behind them, an outcome that perfectly encapsulates how thoroughly voice casting can render even a well-known performer invisible.

6) Ron Perlman as The Hulk (Iron Man)

Ron Perlman is most widely recognized for his transformative work in Hellboy and for his seven-season run as Clay Morrow in Sons of Anarchy, two roles that cemented his reputation as a character actor of unusual range and gravity. Before either of those projects, though, Perlman provided the voice for both Bruce Banner and the Hulk in the 1994 animated series Iron Man, produced as part of the Marvel Action Hour programming block alongside Fantastic Four. The casting placed one of the industry’s most commanding voices behind the dual identity of gamma-irradiated scientist and the destructive creature that Banner’s experiments produced. The role now stands as an almost entirely forgotten chapter in the career of an actor who went on to considerably higher-profile recognition.

5) Neil Patrick Harris as Spider-Man (Spider-Man: The New Animated Series)

Neil Patrick Harris is broadly recognized for the self-aware comedy of Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, a decade-long performance that earned multiple Emmy nominations and elevated his career after the early success of Doogie Howser, M.D. In 2003, Harris voiced the lead character in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, MTV’s visually ambitious animated series that ran for a single season of 13 episodes. The production used fully CG animation, a stylistic departure from the hand-drawn look of the 1990s Fox animated series, and targeted a young adult audience rather than children. The show’s brief run and its positioning on MTV rather than a major broadcast network contributed to its rapid disappearance from popular memory, taking Harris’s turn as Marvel’s flagship hero with it.

4) Mark Hamill as Hobgoblin (Spider-Man: The Animated Series)

Mark Hamill is globally famous for his portrayal of Luke Skywalker across the Star Wars saga while simultaneously standing as the most celebrated voice actor of his generation, an identity most strongly associated with his decades-long run as The Joker in the DC Animated Universe. Yet, his work in Spider-Man: The Animated Series feels underappreciated. Hamill voiced the Hobgoblin across the 1994 animated series, applying the same theatrical menace that made his Joker iconic to one of Spider-Man’s most unpredictable villains. Because Hamill’s voice-acting credentials are so well established, his Marvel work rarely surfaces in conversations about his career, a disservice to a performance that deserves considerably more recognition in the history of Marvel animation.

3) Jennifer Connelly as Karen (Spider-Man: Homecoming)

Jennifer Connelly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for A Beautiful Mind in 2002, cementing her position among the most respected performers of her generation. Her presence in the MCU is therefore all the more striking for how subtle it was. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Connelly voiced Karen, the AI assistant built into Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) suit by Tony Stark. This role placed her at the center of the film without giving audiences any visual cue to her identity. The casting also carries some meta significance, as Connelly’s husband, Paul Bettany, voices the AI JARVIS across the Iron Man films before portraying Vision from Avengers: Age of Ultron forward. Connelly delivered the role with a calm warmth that suited Karen’s function as a surrogate mentor, and the performance’s obscurity is entirely a product of how invisibly the MCU made one of its most accomplished voice actors.

2) Djimon Hounsou as Black Panther (Black Panther)

Djimon Hounsou received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for both In America and Blood Diamond, establishing him as one of the most credentialed performers of his era long before the superhero genre became the dominant force in mainstream cinema. In 2010, Hounsou voiced T’Challa in the BET/Marvel Knights animated series Black Panther, a six-episode motion comic adaptation of Reginald Hudlin’s celebrated comic run. The production placed Hounsou at the top of its voice cast, making him the first prominent actor to portray T’Challa on screen in any format—a distinction that became considerably more significant after Boseman’s live-action performance in 2018 turned the character into a global phenomenon. Curiously, Hounsou joined the MCU four years later in Guardians of the Galaxy as the Kree warrior Korath, meaning he has existed in the MCU while his pioneering work as T’Challa has faded almost completely from public awareness.

1) Jon Hamm as Iron Man (Marvel’s MODOK)

Jon Hamm spent seven seasons as Don Draper on Mad Men, a performance that earned him a Golden Globe and established him as one of the most charismatic leading men in the history of prestige television. Surprisingly to some, in 2021, Hamm voiced Tony Stark in Marvel’s MODOK, Patton Oswalt’s stop-motion adult comedy for Hulu, stepping into the most beloved roles in the MCU’s history. The show’s comedic framing gave Hamm’s version of Stark a lazier and more buffoonish quality than the MCU original, but his natural ease with self-satisfied charm retained the character’s core magnetism. Marvel’s MODOK ran for 10 episodes before Hulu canceled it. Unfortunately, the stop-motion aesthetics and the adult-oriented humor, added to the fact that MODOK is not a pop culture icon, mean the series (and Hamm’s voice performance) remains criminally underwatched.

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