Yuri Lowenthal, the actor behind Peter Parker in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, had an unexpected pick for his favorite spidey-centric villain.
“Man, that’s a hard one,” Lowenthal said in an interview with Gamesradar. “It’s hard with all the things that we’ve built to not love the relationship Spider-Man, Peter Parker, has with Otto Octavius, Doctor Octopus.” He’s of course referring to the mentor-mentee relationship that was central to Insomniac’s first superhero outing, but the actor had another surprising baddie in mind.
“One of the villains I’ve always loved, and that I pushed for in the games early on, is Spot,” he continued. “I was like, ‘Can we get Spot in this game [the sequel]?’ And then of course, he ends up showing up in the movie [Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse], so I kind of get the best of both worlds.”
Lowenthal previously mused that Spider-Man’s rogues gallery was second only to Batman’s, and he continued to assert that “they’re some of the most memorable bad people out there.” But upon reflection, Lowenthal had a second, even more unexpected, pick. “I say it now as tongue-in-cheek because I feel kind of like an asshole even saying this, but Peter's greatest villain is… himself,” the actor said. “It's that guilt, his lack of confidence, and he beats himself up much more than any villain would ever do."
When it comes to his own sequel’s big bad and arguably Spidey’s most recognizable villain ever, Lowenthal admitted he didn’t have much history with Venom: “I mean, everybody, everybody, loves Venom. It’s funny because I didn’t grow up reading Spider-Man comics at the time when Venom was big. So I know Venom is huge for a lot of people, but maybe less so for me because I imprinted on Spider-Man way before Venom was around.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out worldwide today - an event that forced fans to go into lockdown to avoid spoilers.
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