Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: breaking bad, spider-noir

Spider-Noir: Nicolas Cage on "Breaking Bad" Convincing Him to Try TV

Spider-Noir star Nicolas Cage explains what it was about Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad that convinced him to give a television series a try.

In 45 years of on-screen acting, Nicolas Cage has avoided TV projects, happily remaining a movie star through and through. As the streaming era is the established norm, the "movie star" is becoming a dying breed, not literally by passing away, but more are taking on starring in TV projects, like Nicole Kidman in Prime Video's Scarpetta or Gary Oldman in AppleTV's Slow Horses. With Cage finally embracing his first dedicated TV series in Prime Video's Spider-Noir, the first direct spinoff of the animated Spider-Verse franchise, the Academy Award winner spoke to Variety about why he broke from his career norm to reprise Ben Reilly for the Oren Uziel-created series.

Spider-Noir Star Nicolas Cage on How "Breaking Bad" Led to His First TV Starring Role, and Charlie Sheen Guiding Him Through It

When asked what changed his mind about TV work as a movie star, "I was adamant about not doing television, because I didn't want to do anything that was too homogenized or that was like everybody else. And my son sat me down during COVID, and he showed me 'Breaking Bad,' Cage said. "I began to see that the actors in that show were afforded the luxury of time to tell their story. 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 can't do that in movies: You don't have the time. 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. That was the main attraction."

As far as how playing Ben Reilly challenged him and eroded his doubts, "I waited for something that I thought would be special, and I can tell you that with 'Spider-Noir,' the vision that I had in my imagination manifested in the exact way that I'd hoped. And it was scary, and it was risky," Cage said. "I was constantly worried that I was going to get fired, because I was doing this thing of channeling old actors and colliding it with Stan Lee's masterpiece that is 'Spider-Man' to create this Roy Lichtenstein pop-art sensation of sorts. I didn't know until I finally saw the eight episodes whether it was going to work."

Even as established as Cage was on screen, TV was a whole other monster, so he tapped into the star of Two and a Half Men for advice. "I was very nervous to do television, I'll tell ya. One of the producers said, 'We're going to do this read-through because we haven't hit yet with Amazon, and you gotta make sure that during the read-through you don't mumble,'" Cage recalled. "I was so nervous that I called my good friend Charlie Sheen, who's done a lot of television, and asked him for advice. He said, 'Well, that's the hardest part, Nick — the read-through. So, what is it that you're nervous about?' And I said, 'One of the producers said, 'Don't mumble.'' He said, 'I'm sorry… who told you not to mumble? Is his last name 'Sony?'' And I said, 'No.' And he said, 'Well, tell him to fuck off!' So, I had a big laugh, went in, and did the read-through." For more on Cage's career, including his passion for cinema, an update on Face/Off 2, film passions, Spider-Man, and how he believes he might have burned bridges with certain directors, and more, you can check out the full interview. Spider-Noir, which also stars Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Jack Huston, and Brendan Gleeson, is available on Prime Video.

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