Marvel
Scottish actor Ruaridh Mollica has said he hopes fans will accept his accent as he stars in the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
The 27-year-old plays the speedster Tommy Maximoff in the new Disney+ miniseries VisionQuest, which is based on the superhero comic book character Vision.
Tommy is an 18-year-old orphan who is newly out of the foster care system in London but has memories of his mother and father – Avengers Wanda Maximoff and Vision.
Mollica told The Saturday Show on BBC Radio Scotland that speaking in his own accent helped him give the character a fuller personality.
“I want the fans to like what I have done with the character and accept that I have a Scottish accent,” he said.
“It threw a lot of people off at the start, but having my own accent meant I could put my own spin on the character.”
The eight-episode series has been described as the conclusion of a trilogy that also includes WandaVision and Agatha All Along.
Its cast includes Marvel veteran Paul Bettany, award-winning actor James Spader and British performer Joe Locke, who Mollica made his London West End debut with.
When Mollica was added to the lineup in October 2025, he described it as “the best day of my life”.
“I submitted the self tape into the abyss thinking I’m never going to get the role, but after a five-month audition process I was on the plane to New York to do a screen test with Paul Bettany and Terry Matalas, who created the series,” he said.
“My manager in America phoned me and goes, ‘your life is about to change, kid,’ and I just cried.
“I bawled my eyes out, sat on a wall and it started raining in a prophetic fallacy kind of way.”
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Mollica, who was born in Italy to a Scottish mother and an Italian father but grew up in Edinburgh, worked on-and-off as an actor in his teenage years and early 20s.
He made his television debut aged 12 in an episode of the BBC One series Case Histories and made his film debut as a background dancer in the Sunshine on Leith adaptation.
The 27-year-old went on to appear in the drama Stonemouth, an adaptation of the novel by Scottish author Iain Banks, and the romance film Tell It to the Bees.
During his final year at university, he played a lead role the short film Too Rough, which won a Scottish Bafta.
The Scot graduated with a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Heriot-Watt University in 2021.
“After my degree, I thought about doing a masters degree, but acting stole my heart,” Mollica said.
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The 27-year-old said when he was first cast in the role he put a lot of pressure on himself and suffered from imposter syndrome.
But seasoned actor Paul Bettany took him under his wing.
“Paul is very experienced and really held my hand through the whole process so I thank him a lot of that,” Mollica told the radio show.
“He sat me down and said ‘when I played the Vision, I was playing all the truthful human emotion, I was just painted like a robot,’ and that was when it really clicked.”
Now as the series is released on the streaming service, Mollica feels excitement and wants to show Marvel fans what Scottish actors can do.
“Scots are always the underdog but I want to show the world we are a nation of creatives and incredible actors,” he said.
“Paul said the best superpower is accepting who you are and that is what the show is all about.”
Listen to the full interview on The Saturday Show from 09:00 GMT on BBC Sounds.
