Nicolas Cage looked to the classic noir actors from Hollywood’s golden age for inspiration when preparing his performance in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The lifelong comic book fan, who voices Spider-Man Noir in Sony’s upcoming animated film, channeling the iconic actor Humphrey Bogart to reflect the alternate universe’s webslinger own cinematic influences.
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“My character’s Spider-Man Noir. He’s really Peter Parker from the ’30s. I tried to channel those noir films with Bogart, and have those kinds of sounds that he might make with [James] Cagney or Edward G. Robinson, that kind of way of talking,” explained Cage in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I tried to give the character that. It was a lot of fun. I think it should be quite funny. The movie definitely has a sense of humor and that’s a good thing because it’s good for the whole family.”
Cage’s inspiration, Bogart, was one of the most prolific actors in the noir genre from the 1930s through the 1950s. Bogart starred in such classics as The Maltese Falcon, Dark Passage, and The Big Sleep. The entire genre was instrumental in inspiring the pulpy, revenge-fueled version of Peter Parker first created in February 2009 by David Hine, Fabrice Sapolsky, and Carmine Di Giandomenico in the pages of Spider-Man: Noir #1.
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With his upcoming performance, this is actually the second flagship superhero Cage has gotten the opportunity to voice this year. The Academy Award-winning actor voiced Superman in last month’s Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, delivering a memorable performance among the animated film’s ensemble cast.
Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse stars Shameik Moore, Brian Tyree Henry, Jake Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Hailee Steinfeld, Nicolas Cage, Kimiko Glenn, John Mulaney, and Liev Schreiber. It is scheduled to open on December 14.