LOS ANGELES _ The animated feature "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" looks at what happens when a variety of Spider-people come together. At the heart of the eclectic group are the versions voiced by Shameik Moore and Jake Johnson (Miles Morales and Spider-Man).
The actors are as different as their roles. Moore is a 23-year-old Atlanta native who's forging a career in both music and acting, while Johnson's a 40-year-old born in Illinois whose path to acting started with playwriting and forming a sketch comedy troupe.
Those differences helped the actors as they worked on the latest production based on Spider-Man lore. Generally, voice actors work alone in a recording studio, but because the script by Phil Lord ("The Lego Movie") called for the two to be together so much, they got to do their recording sessions at the same time.
Johnson found getting to share the microphone with Moore to be extremely helpful.
"Shameik is a great actor, so being able to act opposite of him _ and see how he is doing Miles � that changes Peter (Parker)," Johnson says. "You are able to spar a little bit together and feel things together. We were able to improvise together and they were able to write new lines and throw them out at us. It helped me really form who Peter was off of Miles."
Don't feel lost if you aren't up to speed on the Spider-verse. It didn't come together in Marvel Comics until four years ago. The storyline looks at what happens when Spider-people from alternate universes unite. In the film, the Spider-Man from this world is pulled to the Earth where graffiti artist Miles Morales is the one who has been bitten by the radioactive spider.
They are joined by Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), the anime Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), the black-and-white Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage) and the cartoonish Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). Together, they must stop Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber) from destroying all their worlds.
Moore had only a passing knowledge of Morales before the recording sessions started, but he has been a fan of Spider-Man for years, introduced through numerous animated television series. Johnson's knowledge of Spider-Man came from his brother, who was a big comic book reader.
"I think what the directors, writers and creators have done is taken this to a whole other level," Johnson says. "People _ not those who just love comics, but those who love stories _ are going to love it. I think it is very current in a great way. I love the idea that anyone can wear the mask but it's not throwing out the old. It is an action, animated comedy for 2018."
"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" is Moore's first foray into voice work, but he's no stranger to the recording studio. Moore has only a few credits _ "The Get Down," 'Dope" _ because he's been working hard on dancing and music.
The studio may be the same, but the process is different for Moore. When he's in the recording studio, Moore is creating something that's coming directly from his own creative soul. Voice work has him playing the words that generally have been written by someone else. In many cases, the process feels repetitive to him when he has to record the same line of dialogue multiple times.
"I am thankful for the opportunities that acting has done for me," Moore says. "I feel like I execute with the job and it also allows me to have respect, that I appreciate. Music is self-expression. With this, I'm hired to play a role. I am sharing different parts of myself. The music is who I am."
Johnson's best known for the seven seasons he spent playing Nick Miller on "New Girl," but he came to "Spider-Verse" with experience as a voice actor. His credits include "BoJack Horseman," "Smurfs: The Lost Village," "The Lego Movie" and "Allen Gregory."
"I find voice work to be a real weird, pure form of acting," Johnson says. "It is acting without any vanity. If you are doing a scene it is like acting with the lights off. If you walk in and look at Shameik and me, you are going to start judging us on what you see. If the lights are off, you are only listening to what we are saying and how we are saying it."
