While Spider-Man fans are all aflutter over the rumor that Tobey Maguire is going to be in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a different OG Spider-Man actor wishes he could also make a cameo in the movie.
Nicholas Hammond played the web-slinger in the 1970s TV show. It was the first live-action iteration of the character after Spider-Man appeared in The Electric Company – a children’s show.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Hammond explained that he would’ve loved to have a cameo in a Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movie. He also confirmed it didn’t happen.
“I think it would have been huge fun. It would have been a kick in the pants to have the old guy there,” Hammond said. “I was really hoping I would be approached but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”
He also praised Holland’s performance in the newer movies and said it was the most like his own show.
“Tom Holland’s version is the closest to what we were doing; trying to make him very much a real guy, someone who you could actually forget he had these powers and get caught up in Peter’s story,” Hammond said. “That was what we were going for.”
Hammond didn’t even want to play the character initially.
“At first, I was reluctant because the only show that had ever been on TV like that was Batman,” the actor said. “And I was not interested in being in something like that. It had its own value, but that was not really for me, the ‘Pow,’ ‘Zoom’ stuff. And [the producers] said, ‘We want this guy to be a real guy. We want viewers to get involved in his life, his story.’ And I thought, ‘What a challenge. Take a sort of fanciful character and convince the viewers he is real, make them forget that essentially what they are watching is a comic book character.’ That was something I wanted to do, and they offered me the job.”
The show isn’t fondly remembered. Hammond thinks that’s because they didn’t use real Spidey villains and instead had him focus on real criminals like robbers. The show ran from 1977 to 1979 for just 13 episodes.
