Nicolas Cage reveals if he prefers playing heroes or villains

Nicolas Cage doesn't want to get "trapped" into doing one thing.

The 62-year-old actor insisted he doesn't have a preference between playing heroes or villains in his projects because he enjoys taking on a variety of different roles.

He told People magazine: “Villain? I've played plenty of villains. I like both. I think they're both important parts of cinema. I would not want to get trapped into doing one thing."

Nicolas also reflected on turning down the chance to play Green Goblin in the Spider-Man series in the early 2000s, a role which subsequently went to Willem Dafoe opposite Tobey Maguire as the web-slinging super hero, in favour of starring in Adaptation because that felt like the "right choice at the time".

The actor - who was subsequently nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Adaptation - said: “I decided to do another movie, a much smaller noir of sorts, more romantic than tragic noir.

"But I remember saying to Sam [Raimi, director], ‘I hope whoever you cast [as Spider-Man] really embraces the arachnid body language, at least for one moment. Alone in his apartment, he's crawling on the ceiling or something."

Nicolas can next be seen in Spider-Noir as 1930s private investigator Ben Reilly, who has spidey senses, and is based on the Spider-Man Noir comic series which launched in 2008.

And when approaching the role, Nicolas was keen to blend “some of [his] favourite old-style actors, [James] Cagney, [Humphrey] Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and collide them with Stan Lee's masterpiece, Spider-Man, and create something new.”

He added: "I wanted to create this almost like pop-art Lichtenstein painting and performance style."

During filming, Nicolas got involved with some stunts which brought his "adrenaline up".

He added: "I don't have any crazy stories. I did a lot of wirework, which is understandable since this character is flying around quite a bit on webs. I always get a kick out of that.

"Everybody was on point so I was safe. But for me, that's just the fun part of doing this. Primarily, I was focused on trying to craft this performance style that would fit in the black-and-white format."

The series will be available to stream in both Authentic Black and White and True-Hue Full Color.

He previously told Esquire: "It matches my concept of how to portray a film noir. But the truth is, they both work and they're beautiful for different reasons.

"The colour is super saturated and gorgeous. I think teenage viewers will appreciate the colour, but I also want them to have the option. If they want to experience the concept in black and white, maybe that would instill some interest in them to look at earlier movies and enjoy that as an art form as well."