Actor Shameik Moore has always wanted to be Spider-Man, writing in his teenage diary about his dream to play the web-slinger.
In the animated film, Into the Spider-Verse, he’s the voice of Miles Morales, a biracial Brooklyn teen who gains his superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider.
The character has exchanged Peter Parker's red and blue suits for edgier black and red, paired with cool trainers.
The 23-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, says he put his own stamp on the character, giving him sweetness and swagger.
“It’s a black Spider-Man, and he looks like me,” Moore told AP news agency. “It’s a new time in Hollywood. Not only are we in live-action superhero movies, but they are animating us now. I’m honored to be the first black Spider-Man in a film.”
Playing Spider-Man in a live-action film remains a dream for the 23 year old, who shot to fame as Shaolin Fantastic in Baz Luhrmann’s 1970s Bronx-set drama The Get Down. He says he’s confident he could cope with the stunt work.
Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse Source: Marvel
"I’m very physical. I don’t need the mask to do flips,” He told AP. “I won’t need a stunt double.”
The reason producers say they chose to make an animated film was so that the superheroes could move like they do in the comic strip. Animators used CGI technology and hand-drawn animation to make it happen, with the creative process taking three years in all.
Moore reportedly was still voicing in the studios right up until two weeks before the premiere in Atlanta at the beginning of December.
Inspiring audiences
Fellow cast members say the film is about inclusion, and hope it will inspire audiences to believe in themselves, and feel as if anybody can be a hero or a spider person.
“I can’t imagine if I was a kid and there was a black or brown Spider-Man, I would have been so excited,” Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali tells AP agency, who is the voice of Morales’ uncle Aaron Davis aka Prowler.
“This opens doors for a different generation to sort of believe in different possibilities. There’s a generation that came into the world knowing Barack Obama was their president, and never thought it was strange or a huge feat. Hopefully, this can be the same.”
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