Nicolas Cage has revealed that watching the television series Breaking Bad during the pandemic made him realise that television offers a unique “luxury of time” that films do not. This realisation led him to take on the lead role in the Marvel series Spider-Noir, where he plays an ageing private investigator and superhero named Ben Reilly set in 1930s New York.
Cage explained that he had avoided television for years because he didn’t want to be part of work that felt “homogenised” or “like everybody else.” However, his perspective changed after his son introduced him to Breaking Bad during the lockdown.
“I began to see that the actors in that show were afforded the luxury of time to tell their story,” Cage said. “I saw Bryan Cranston staring at a suitcase for what seemed like minutes. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, and all he was doing was staring at a suitcase, and it occurred to me that you cannot do that in movies: You don’t have the time.”
This experience inspired Cage to explore longer-form narratives, which he found more appealing. He described how the eight-episode format of Spider-Noir allowed him to plant seeds for a character that could evolve over time, something he couldn’t achieve in a movie.
“I thought, maybe with an eight-hour narrative I can start planting seeds for a character that can bloom into something that I don’t have the luxury of time to do in a movie,” he said. “That was the main attraction.”
In Spider-Noir, Cage stars as Ben Reilly, a version of the character he previously voiced in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios and is based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir. It features two versions: one in black-and-white to resemble classic noir films, and another in colour inspired by the stylised aesthetic of comics like Dick Tracy.
Cage also spoke about the influences behind his performance, citing classic Hollywood noir and German expressionist cinema. He mentioned Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson as key inspirations, aiming to embody the style of old-world actors.
“I wanted all of that to coalesce so when you watch the black-and-white format of Spider-Noir, you really feel like you’re being transported to another time,” he said.
Additionally, Cage’s movements in the series were influenced by Max Schreck’s performance in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu. He drew inspiration from the choreography of German expressionism, aiming to create a sense of animality in his character.
“One of the most interesting things I find with spiders is that they have no muscles – their appendages are like straws, and they shoot fluid to move – and so that informed this idea of the movements,” he explained.
Cage’s shifting accent throughout the series immediately caught the attention of viewers, but director Oren Uziel confirmed that it was a deliberate choice. He explained that the accent was tied to the character’s transformation from a man to “The Spider.”
“He becomes The Spider and he becomes more spider than man, and has to learn how to be human. So this is him educating himself. That’s him going to the gym, almost,” Uziel said. “So, it was really fun, and it explains why often he is doing Bogart, or doing Cagney, or doing Peter Lorre. It was so fun.”
Uziel also shared that scenes of Cage’s character watching classic films were filmed before settling on specific clips to mimic. One notable example was a scene featuring Great Guy, a 1936 crime drama starring James Cagney.
All episodes of Spider-Noir are now available for streaming on Prime Video UK, offering both black-and-white and colour versions.
