Decoding Nicolas Cage’s 1930s ‘Spider-Noir’ and His ‘King Arthur’ Moment When Donning the Mask and Costume for the First Time

Prime Video’s series isn’t the first time Nicolas Cage is stepping into Spider-Man Noir’s shoes; Cage voiced him in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” And yet, the actor’s apprehension is valid; this is the first time the black-and-white webslinger will have his solo outing. “Spider-Man is iconic. However, ‘Spider-Noir’ is only now being introduced to television. My hope is that I have made him iconic as well.” 

For fans of superheroes and noir films, Oren Uziel’s gene mashup series is quite the treat. Cage’s Spider is a masked superhero who traverses through the streets of 1930s New York, fighting crime, dangerous mobsters and other super-powered beings. However, he hangs up the suit after the death of his fiancée, Ruby (Amanda Schull). His alternate gig is that of private investigator Ben Reilly, who doesn’t use his powers for shortcuts. 

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The character, like most Spider-Man variants, leads a double life. But even though it would seem like the Spider is their alter ego, it’s actually their real-life personas that are the mask. The hero is who they are, and for Ben, it’s a constant battle to rein in The Spider, until he finally gives in and dons the mask again for a complex case.

Cage aptly based his suave and wry-witted Ben Reilly on actors from old black-and-white films, such as Humphrey Bogart. The series, too, pays homage to noir films of yore with its writing, iconic shots and visual tropes reminiscent of that era. But where it gets interesting is that the series has been filmed in both black-and-white and color. And the latter is a rich and vivid on-screen experience that is equally immersive.

“The joy for me was reviewing and embodying my favorite actors of the 1930s and finding ways to pay them homage through the ‘Spider-Noir’ character,” explains Cage. “We shot the show so that both my performance and the cinematography were designed for the black and white format. However, we knew we could also colorize it to give it an older Edward Hopper-like feeling.”

It helps that the Academy Award-winning actor seamlessly fits into the part of a 1930s detective. As for his Spider-Man Noir, Cage does play him as an aging superhero who might not be completely invincible when up against nemeses like Flint Marko, aka Sandman (Jack Huston), and Dirk Leyden, aka Megawatt (Andrew Lewis Caldwell). But there’s something about putting on a superhero suit that’s bound to make even the most veteran actors feel the goosebumps. And Cage concurs.

“I remember the first night they brought me on set in full ‘Spider-Noir’ regalia, you could hear a pin drop. And then gradually people began whispering ‘Spider-Noir, Spider-Noir, Spider-Noir,’ behind me as I passed. When I sat down in Ben Reilly's office chair and pulled off my spider mask, a synthesized electronic version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue was on a loop in my head. I felt like King Arthur might have with people whispering, ‘Arthur, Arthur, Arthur,’ behind him in the wind. I knew then that the glow on my Lichtenstein jet engine afterburner in the slipstream had been achieved.”

A superhero is only as good as his sidekicks and arch nemesis. In “Spider-Noir,” “New Girl” actor Lamorne Morris is Ben’s friend and freelance reporter Joe “Robbie” Robertson, Karen Rodriguez is Ben’s capable and sassy secretary, Janet Ruiz, and Li Jun Li is the stunning femme fatale, Cat Hardy, oozing old-world charm as a nightclub singer and Ben’s potential love interest.

On his relationship with his fellow co-stars, Cage shares, “Fortunately, I was working with like-minded actors who approached the material with great enthusiasm and professionalism. We were all happy to be there and to bring our best, creatively. This fostered a relaxed and energetic atmosphere.”

But perhaps the second most fascinating character in the series is the big bad Irish mobster that The Spider must foil, Brendan Gleeson’s Finn Byrne, aka Silvermane. “Brendan knows how to bring it to the set and to leave it on the set. I enjoyed many colorful and thoughtful conversations with him as a person. And his work, as always, was brilliant.”

All eight episodes of “Spider-Noir” are currently streaming on Prime Video.