Actor Yuri Lowenthal is known for many characters, particularly the titular role of Spider-Man in Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man series. But he’s actually played the character a few different times and recently spoke to ComingSoon about what it was like to play Spideys in multiple games.
The games in question include the aforementioned Insomniac series, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and, most recently, Midnight Suns. Lowenthal noted that he was “honored” to get these chances and how the different teams have their own visions for the character.
“I just feel honored that I have gotten more than one shot in a couple of cases,” he said. “One of the things I love the most is working in a group with other people. With each iteration that I jump on, it’s a different team of people telling a different story. And so, inevitably, the character will be different. Even if I jump in with the same things that I did on the last one, it’ll shift. It’s a different story. It’s a different bunch of writers, and they end up crafting and they end up changing.”
He continued, explaining that he doesn’t necessarily go into it with something in mind that he wants to change, as that happens naturally when working with a new set of creatives.
“So more than heading into it with, ‘Oh, this is something I want to try differently,’ I love to see what they’re coming to the table with and see how that changes it naturally. It definitely helps ease some of my fear of, ‘Oh, what am I going to do different this time? How do I separate this from the last one?’ In the end, I rarely have to, because it’s not just me. It’s me and a bunch of other people creating that character. Then, of course, it’s fun to go, ‘Oh, look how he changed.’ So it’s been great.”
He’s even been multiple Spider-Men in the same game, as Insomniac famously changed the Peter Parker model from the PlayStation 4 original when the remaster came to PlayStation 5 and PC. When asked if that younger face would have changed his performance, he said that he doesn’t always get much of a heads-up of what the model will look like and that visuals are just one part of a character, anyway.
“Any sort of visual stuff that I get in the beginning — and I don’t always get something,” he said, “Most projects have done a bunch of sort of R&D trying to figure out what the look of the character is going to be. As often as possible, I love when they share that right off the top because it, of course, influences how my brain fires after seeing a specific image.
“So I think that visual part is an important part to creating the character, but it’s only one piece, and one piece that I sometimes don’t get. Sometimes I’m working on video games and they may have concept art for the game, but not necessarily for the character I’m playing. Or it’ll end up changing over the course of the development of the game. So it only has to be one piece. But it’s definitely important to me and I love getting that right at the top.”
