Spider-Man: Far From Home’s Sneaky Jake Gyllenhaal Sighting You Might Have Missed

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck makes a sneaky “cameo” just before Mysterio heroically saves Venice from Hydro-Man in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Spoilers follow.

When Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and his classmates reach Italy as part of their European vacation, Peter is determined to purchase a Black Dahlia necklace for crush MJ (Zendaya).

It’s there Beck can be spotted in the background, disguised as another tourist, quietly spying on the scene. Minutes later, when a stories-tall water creature puts innocent lives in danger, armored superhero Mysterio makes his grand reveal to the world and is quickly seen as “Iron Man and Thor rolled into one.”

Fans caught the sneaky Beck in screenshots shared to Twitter, confirming the appearance with a behind-the-scenes photo of director Jon Watts and Gyllenhaal in his incognito clothes. Gyllenhaal shared his “sexy dad outfit” in a post published to Instagram, attaching the hashtag “#wheresbeck.”

Peter and Beck quickly bond, and Spider-Man looks up to the fishbowl helmet-wearing superhero as the next Iron Man following the death of mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr).

Only later does Peter learn Beck isn’t the last-surviving member of an alternate world destroyed by elemental monsters, but is instead a deeply disturbed, grudge-carrying ex-Stark Industries employee out to use advanced holographic technology to fool the world into believing Mysterio is its greatest hero.

For their spin on master of illusions Mysterio, one of Spider-Man’s most recurring foes in the Marvel comic books, the filmmakers wanted to pull one over on the audience when introducing the deceptive villain into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“With Mysterio, there were versions of the story where he was at the forefront as an out-and-out villain that Peter and Nick [Fury] were chasing around Europe as he pulled off these events, all building to this back story of why he was doing it, which was a wholly different third act. We went down a lot of different roads,” co-writer Chris McKenna told the New York Times.

“But ultimately,” added co-writer Erik Sommers, “because Mysterio deals so much in deception, it was sort of natural that it led to a story structure where his entire identity was a mislead for a while.”

For well-read comic book fans expecting Mysterio’s eventual heel turn, “You kind of can’t worry about that when you’re coming up with a plot like this,” McKenna said.

“You just have to hope that you can get away with it long enough so that when the reveal comes up, people are still having fun with the movie.”