With the Nicolas Cage-led Spider-Noir series gradually approaching its streaming release date, the long-term Marvel collaborator has come out to explain how he prepared for the part. In a recent interview, Cage, who is making the jump to live-action after voicing Spider-Noir in Sony’s Spider-Verse films, opened up about the characters and actors he studied that helped him construct a unique persona for his upcoming Spider-Man spin-off.
Nicolas Cage says Spider-Noir was ‘70% Bogart and 30% Bugs Bunny’ for him
The Ghost Rider star revealed that he not only drew inspiration from iconic old-school actors but also attempted to channel the eccentric antics of certain cartoon characters for Amazon’s Spider-Noir series.
“For me, this character was 70 percent Bogart and 30 percent Bugs Bunny. I was basically Mel Blanc doing Bogart, with that sarcastic sense of humor. But it’s a hundred percent me,” Nicolas Cage told Esquire.
Cage provided further insight into his approach for his role in the Spider-Verse spin-off by adding, “You’ll see some other influences start to emerge as well. I did look at Cagney, and I looked at Edward G. Robinson. But when you watch Bogart, and you watch everybody around him, he almost seems like a cartoon character. The same thing happens here. But it’s brilliant, and you can’t take your eyes off the guy. It’s what makes him so compelling and charismatic. He just didn’t sound like anybody else. It almost seemed larger than life.”
Moreover, Nicolas confirmed that there is a reason behind his titular character’s demeanor in the Spider-Verse spin-off series, which is “above and beyond just mashing the flavors of 1930s film performance and Marvel iconography.” He noted, “There’s an actual reason, an origin story, why Ben talks the way he talks. But you’ll get to that in a later episode.”
Developed by Oren Uziel, Spider-Noir is currently on track to debut on MGM+ and Amazon Prime Video sometime this spring.
Originally reported by Apoorv Rastogi on SuperHeroHype.
