JK Simmons says Stan Lee had shown interest in playing J Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spiderman

Actor JK Simmons is back with some interesting facts about the characters he had played. It has been almost two decades since Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy was released. While most younger fans have become older, Spiderman is still the same in our hearts.

In an interview video released by GQ on August 15, 2024, the actor disclosed that his character J Jonah Jameson was based on its writer Stan Lee and was a comic version of the writer himself.

“You know, JJJ was kind of based on Stan. That was his comic version of himself. And he confessed to me at the time that you know, he was little jealous they didn’t ask him to play the part in the movie”, said JK Simmons.

Stan Lee told JK Simmons that he did a fantastic job in playing the character. He felt it was a great compliment coming from a person like him. The actor also mentioned that Sam Raimi did not essentially make a movie about Spiderman but about Peter Parker, which made it relatable to the audience.

“And thank you Sam for championing me to play J Jonah Jameson. You know, I had vivid memories of J Jonah Jameson from the comic books, a guy with a mustache and a big flat top and this big mouthful of white teeth and this angry snarl”, said Simmons.

JK Simmons was never into comic books. His father was a farm boy from Illinois, while his mother was a city girl from Chicago. His family would go outside Gerlaw to visit his cousin Weed on his farm. He recalled that his cousin was deeply interested in Marvel comic books and that Spiderman was his favourite character.

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JK Simmons also starred in Sam Raimi’s For Love of the Game

Simmons had already worked with Sam Raimi in two of his films before Spiderman. He had auditioned for For Love of the Game. The actor recalled his flair for playing grounded, subtle, real and intense characters. He said,

“As I read every Spiderman comic I could get my hands on, it just more and more screamed this is a character as much as any character in the movie maybe more, that needs to jump off the pages of the comic book and be larger than life in his energy and have this Preston Sturges kind of rhythm and vibe to it.”

Tom Holland’s Spiderman movies were ideated by Jon Watts, whom JK Simmons did not know, and Amy Pascal, whom he knew from the beginning. The veteran actor failed to recall whose idea was to reintroduce J Jonah Jameson in the new Spiderman movies. Yet, he was very much intrigued by it.

However, his newly-reintroduced character had to do away with certain aspects of its appearance, like the flat top, moustache, and cigar. It was a way to modernize the franchise. Despite that, JK Simmons suggested keeping the character’s moustache and the cigar.