J.K. Simmons is an Oscar-winning actor and one of the hardest working performers in the business with dozens of roles to his name. So, which role sticks out to him as a career highlight? The actor is revealing that his time spent playing J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films will always hold a place in his heart as a career highlight.
During a chat with Den of Geek, Simmons called Sam Raimi one of his favorite human beings, and went on to say “Those movies with Sam will always be big highlights of my career and my life. Sam is one of my favorite directors.” Between 2002 and 2007, Simmons played Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) boss at The Daily Bugle in all three of Raimi’s Spider-Man movies. In a solid nod to fans, he reprised the role as the MCU’s alternate version of the character in Spider-Man: Far From Home, a role he is also set to continue in the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home. Simmons went on to detail why he was excited to play the role again in Far From Home:
“To have the opportunity to kind of do a reboot of the character, I was eager to hang on to the things I really loved about it and totally open to letting go of some of that, and realizing we are in a more updated version of that universe. Hopefully, we found the sweet spot there.”
J.K. Simmons really is a case of perfect casting and a perfect interpretation of that character. That character springs to life from the comic books to the big screen and really gave us a definitive version of that character. The version from the Spider-Man animated series is also solid but Simmons completely nails that character and steals all the scenes he appears in. Simmons jokes that the only thing that has really changed about playing him is his hair and that he enjoys that the character hasn’t really experienced much character growth:
“For a lot of characters, that evolution is a really important aspect. I like the lack of evolution of that character. There are ways that he’s evolved, but he’s the same blowhard… and that’s what I enjoy doing.”
J.K. Simmons can currently be seen opposite Chris Pratt in The Tomorrow War on Amazon Prime Video and Spider-Man: No Way Home hits screens on December 17, 2001. Is J. Jonah Jameson one of your favorite characters that J.K. Simmons has played?
