Once more info emerged about Spider-Noir, the big thing that stuck out was its main character. Instead of following a 1930s version of Peter Parker, who’s Spider-Man as a private eye, it’s actually Ben Reilly—a Peter clone who’s commonly the Scarlet Spider—behind the mask.

As co-showrunner Oren Uziel told Esquire, Peter’s too boyish and associated with high school to fit the idea of a film noir detective going by the codename “the Spider.” Enter Ben, who’s “already gone through the entire arc and has seen it all,” said Uziel. “He’s over it, and trying to move past it, Uziel says. “But his past kind of keeps coming back to haunt him.”

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the show’s producers, went on to describe Ben as “older and jaded” compared to Peter, the type of guy who’s “already had his Chinatown disillusionment moment that happened years and years ago.” The exact specifics of said moment will be revealed throughout the season, ditto why he’s going by Ben now.

But if you’re here to see Nicolas Cage be Cage, it also sounds like you won’t be disappointed: Cage told Esquire he was trying to channel a 70/30 split between Humphrey Bogart and Bugs Bunny, but Lord gave a different, possibly stranger description of the actor’s performance.

“[Nic’s] take on it was, ‘I’m a spider trying to cosplay as a human,’” he said. “He’s code-switching. Inside his body, he feels like an animal.”

And to Miller, that kind of thinking is “why you cast Nicolas Cage. He’s going to come at a character in a way that no one else would think of.” We’ll see how spider-y Cage is when Spider-Noir hits Prime Video later this year.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.