Yuri Lowenthal and Nadji Jeter, the voices behind the game world’s Peter Parker and Miles Morales, on expanding their characters.
When veteran voice actor Yuri Lowenthal hit the Hall H stage for San Diego Comic-Con in July to preview the highly anticipated video game Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the first thing he did was perform the Tobey Maguire dance.
The sequel to 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man features the introduction of Venom and the alien symbiote. So, naturally, as the guy behind the games’ Peter Parker, he had to climb atop the panel’s table and roll his arms like Maguire famously did for the Sam Raimi-directed film Spider-Man 3. “I knew it wasn’t in the game, but I know people wanted it — and I selfishly also wanted to do it,” Lowenthal tells EW over Zoom with his costar Nadji Jeter. “That’s probably why I did not ask [game developers] Insomniac or Sony if I could. I just did it and hoped that they would not be too angry at me afterwards.”
Jeter, who plays Miles Morales, didn’t know either. “I just went with the punches,” he comments, sitting in an airport waiting area before boarding his plane. “That was full adrenaline, that was full excitement for the fans.”
Bill Rosemann, Yuri Lowenthal, and Nadji Jeter on stage at Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: Symbiotic Relationships panel during 2023 Comic-Con International in San Diego
Credit: Getty
The roaring crowd, expectedly, ate it up — a sign of just how big a star both of these gents have become in the gaming world. Selling more than 33 million copies in under four years, Marvel’s Spider-Man became an instant sensation, featuring a lot of the same kind of compelling storytelling, tantalizing comic book Easter eggs, thrilling action sequences, and even a post-credits scene or two that rival even Disney’s slate of Marvel movies. The success prompted a standalone spinoff, 2022’s Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, as well as the development of a new Marvel game at Insomniac focused on Wolverine. And now, both Lowenthal and Jeter are diving much deeper into their thriving corner of the Spider-Verse with a formal sequel.
“It’s going to be crazy,” Jeter says of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, out this weekend. “What you guys are going to play is going to be insane.”
Lowenthal’s Peter, dressed in his classic super suit from the first game, made a notable cameo appearance in the 2023 movie Across the Spider-Verse, so these games really do feel as though they are part of a larger entertainment multiverse. But like any parallel reality, things play out a little differently here than they do in the films, shows, and comics.