Nicolas Cage Is Looking Forward to ‘Expressing My Performance Dreams’ with Much More TV

How does an actor who has won an Oscar and been in movies for five decades continue to innovate? By doing something in a new medium we’ve literally never seen him do before. It’s incredible that Nicolas Cage has, until now, never dipped his toes into television, but with “Spider-Noir,” we’re glad he did, and so it seems, is he.

Accepting the Innovation Award at the IndieWire Honors ceremony in Hollywood on Thursday, June 4, Cage suggested that his first foray into episodic television with “Spider-Noir” won’t be his last.

“As a professional actor, affording me the opportunity to experiment and manifest a concept with performance equal to, and even beyond, anything that I have attempted in cinema,” Cage said on stage from Nya West. “This has been an extremely rewarding new adventure. And I hope to continue exploring new ways to express my performance dreams within the television format.”

Cage was the first honoree of the evening, and he took the stage with the spontaneity we’ve come to know from him, donning a pair of sunglasses before he began reading. These though, he said, were prescription, even if they also just looked cool on him.

Cage thanked producers Amy Pascal, Katherine Pope, former Amazon Studios exec Jen Salke, Amazon MGM Studios global TV head Peter Friedlander, and of course creator Oren Uziel, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were behind converting his “Spider-Noir” character from the animated “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” into a live-action series no less.

“I’m also simply thankful for television itself,” Cage added. “I will always appreciate the comfort television gave me as a small child.”

Nicolas Cage receives the Innovation Award at IndieWire TV Honors 2026 held at Nya Studios West on June 04, 2026 in Los Angeles, CaliforniaMichael Buckner

Those memories from childhood also included his love of comic book stories and superhero characters, but he clarified in an interview with IndieWire ahead of the event that it’s not the men in tights that fascinate him but the emotions that come along with it.

“I’m not really interested in superheroes. I’m interested in the psyche,” he told IndieWire. “I’m interested in film performance and I’m interested in acting and different styles of acting. Whether it’s comedy or drama or action adventure or whether it’s old style acting or kabuki or opera, I’m interested in all of it. I love it all, but I’m always looking for something new to explore and to do. And so with ‘Spider-Noir,’ it’s one of the rare maybe two or three times where this vision in my imagination manifested exactly as I had hoped.”

For Cage, “Spider-Noir” was a rare chance to play an old-fashioned, hard-boiled, gumshoe type who also has great power and great responsibility. And he hopes that younger audiences who watch “Spider-Noir” might be inspired to check out some of the film noir classics that inspired it.

“I said to Jen Salke when I met her, ‘Just because the 13-year-old doesn’t know who Humphrey Bogart is doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. The point is it works, it communicates and they’re going to get it,’” Cage said. “So if you can do that and interest other generations to watch the old movies again and discover this wealth of American cinema that we have, I mean, I think that’s only going to make them want to make great movies in the future.”

This season’s IndieWire Honors ceremony took place on Thursday, June 4, in Los Angeles with an intimate cocktail reception and ceremony. Stay tuned for more exclusive editorial and social content from the night, including video interviews, outtakes, and more.

You can watch Cage’s full speech in the video above.