Nicolas Cage admitted that he always avoids being “trapped” into playing the same type of role throughout his career.
During a recent chat with People at the Spider-Noir premiere in New York City, the 62-year-old Oscar winner spoke about whether he prefers playing heroes or villains.
He told the magazine when asked about which roles he prefers, “Villain? I’ve played plenty of villains. I like both. I think they’re both important parts of cinema. I would not want to get trapped into doing one thing.”
Cage also revealed that he once spoke to director Sam Raimi about possibly playing the “Green Goblin” in the early 2000s Spider-Man films, but he chose to do the 2002 movie Adaptation instead.
“I decided to do another movie, a much smaller noir of sorts, more romantic than tragic noir,” he explained. “But I remember saying to Sam, ‘I hope whoever you cast [as Spider-Man] really embraces the arachnid body language, at least for one moment. Alone in his apartment, he’s crawling on the ceiling or something.’”
The role of “Green Goblin” eventually went to Willem Dafoe, while Tobey Maguire played Spider-Man. Cage was later nominated for an Oscar for Adaptation and later won an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas.
Over the years, Cage played many villain roles, including Marvel’s Ghost Rider, Longlegs and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
In the upcoming Spider-Noir, Cage plays Ben Reilly, a private investigator in 1930s New York with spider-like abilities. Cage revealed that for the character he wanted “to blend ‘some of my favorite old-style actors, [James] Cagney, [Humphrey] Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and collide them with Stan Lee’s masterpiece, Spider-Man, and create something new.’”
In another interview, he described the character as “70 percent Bogart, and 30 percent Bugs Bunny.”
Spider-Noir is all set to premiere on MGM+ on May 25 and on Prime Video on May 27.
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