Stanford's first major film role was in the low-budget indie film
Tadpole (2002), in which he portrays Oscar Grubman, a precocious 15-year-old with a crush on his stepmother, played by
Sigourney Weaver. For this performance he earned a nomination for the
Golden Satellite Award. In 2001 and 2002 he appeared multiple times on the
television series Third Watch as Russian teen Sergei. That same year, he was named as one of
Daily Varietys "Top Ten Actors to Watch" and included on
Entertainment Weeklys "It List". In 2004 he appeared in
Christopher Shinn's play
Where Do We Live at the Vineyard Theatre. Stanford also starred as
Anthony LaPaglia's son in the 2004 film
Winter Solstice. Director
Bryan Singer was impressed with Stanford's performance in
Tadpole, and cast him as
Pyro in the 2003 blockbuster
X2, a sequel to
X-Men. He continued the role in the third installment,
X-Men: The Last Stand, released in May 2006. Both movies are based on the
Marvel Comics series
X-Men. Stanford appeared in the 2006 remake of
Wes Craven's
The Hills Have Eyes. He also won the "One To Watch" award at the 2006 Young Hollywood Awards. And in that same year, he starred in the New Hampshire–based comedy,
Live Free or Die, playing a wannabe tough-guy criminal named John Rudgate. Aaron also was the voice actor for Pvt. Polonsky in
Call of Duty: World at War. In 2009, he played a troubled poker genius in a season eight episode of
Law & Order: Criminal Intent, as well as Horace Cook Jr. in an episode of AMC's acclaimed show
Mad Men. In 2010, he joined the CW's
Nikita as
Birkhoff. His character from the film
The Hills Have Eyes appears in the 2012 video game
Call of Duty: Black Ops II via Zombies Mode. Stanford played the lead role of James Cole in the
television adaptation of the movie
12 Monkeys, which premiered in January 2015 on
Syfy. He also was cast in the AMC series
Fear the Walking Dead as the recurring character
Jim, first appearing in the episode that aired on August 26, 2018. In 2024, Stanford reprised his role as Pyro in the
Marvel Studios film
Deadpool & Wolverine. In an interview with
Entertainment Weekly, Stanford said that he was "shocked and thrilled" to get the call to return and also voiced his delight at getting to wear a superhero costume, something he did not get to do in either of his previous performances. "In the original X-Men films, Pyro gets really shortchanged in terms of a costume", he told
EW. "In
X2 [...] the
SWAT team bursts in in the middle of the night and we have to flee. So for half the movie, I'm in my jammies. [...] And in
X3, I was just dressed in an ensemble from
Hot Topic [...] to have [Pyro] be in a proper superhero costume that was actually taken from the comics themselves was very cool." ==Filmography==