Nicolas Cage took inspiration from Humphrey Bogart for his performance in 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'.

Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage

The 54-year-old actor has revealed he turned towards the iconic star as he searched for inspiration for his role as Spider-Man Noir in the new computer-animated superhero film.

Recalling how he was cast in the movie, Cage explained to HeyUGuys: "It was a phone call I got from Sony Pictures that they were interested in me playing Spider-Man Noir and I met the directors and we met in downtown LA somewhere and they showed me what the movie was going to look like, and I thought it was going to be a beautiful, visual feast."

Cage revealed he could sees parallels between Spider-Man Noir and a "1930s noir film star".

He said: "They mentioned this character Spider-Man Noir and I had already done 'Dog Eat Dog' with Paul Schrader where I was playing with a Humphrey Bogart kind of style and affectation and I thought Spider-Man Noir could be fun to think about the voice as being almost like a 1930s noir film star, like a [James] Cagney or a Bogart or an Edward G [Robinson] or any of these guys that talked fast and had a certain style and a rhythm to their delivery.

"So Spider-Man Noir became a kind of taste of that ... not a precise impression of Bogart but more of a mix of all their flavours in terms of the way they would talk and a memory of that growing up with those movies, so that's what was most exciting to me about playing the role."