Joel McHale Looks Back on Spider-Man 2 Role, Says Spider-Man: No Way Home Made Him “Emotional”

Joel McHale is known for an array of projects ranging from Community to Stargirl, but many might remember his role in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. McHale played Mr. Jacks, the bank manager who wasn’t too nice to the Parkers before they all got caught up in Doc Ock’s robbery. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with McHale about his new Planters Mixed Nuts Super Bowl ad, and we asked him about his Spider-Man 2 experience in honor of the fact that his former co-stars, Tobey Maguire and Alfred Molina, just returned for Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

“I saw it twice in the first week,” McHale said of Spider-Man: No Way Home. “I became emotional when they came on screen, because it was such a well-executed story. But yeah, there’s this nostalgia and this sort of like … I mean, the movie was so well done because it brought together all these things. Because that moment when Andrew Garfield catches Zendaya, it was such a great payoff. And so I was so happy. I saw it again, even more to see the second time, and believe me, I wanted Mr. Jacks the bank manager to come back.”

We joked that Mr. Jacks is what the movie was missing, and McHale replied, “Yeah, that’s what everyone’s saying. A lot of people are talking about that. Where is Mr. Jacks?” He added, “I mean, the fact that it passed $1.3 billion or whatever it was … It’s passing other gigantic movies and it hasn’t even been released in China is pretty just remarkable.”

As for McHale’s Super Bowl commerical, the actor talked about the difference between working on a commercial set versus a television set.

“The catering is a lot better,” McHale joked. “So there’s not that much of a difference. I mean … whether it’s a client and then there’s the ad agency over there, so that is different than a regular television set. But that makes sense. They’re the ones that are making it happen, so they’re there. And I’d say it goes a little bit faster unless, I don’t know, unless you’re jumping a car across the canyon or something. And knowing Ken [Jeong], we have such a shorthand for the way we speak to each other, so we’ve known each other now for 11, 12 years … So that was very familiar.”

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Joel McHale where he talks about Community and Stargirl.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is still playing in theaters. You can check out McHale’s new Planters Mixed Nuts ad during the Super Bowl on February 13th.