Spider-Man 2 Star Alfred Molina Reflects on Doctor Octopus Role: “Completely Changed My Life”

20 years after playing the metal-limbed Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2, Alfred Molina is reflecting on the role he says “changed [his] life.” 

At the time known for his roles as the treacherous Satipo in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in Frida, Molina says he was playing against type when he was cast as esteemed scientist-turned-mad doctor Otto Octavius in Sam Raimi’s sequel to his 2002 blockbuster Spider-Man. It’s during a demonstration of a new fusion-based energy source where Octavius debuts his four smart arms — tentacles — that become fused to his spinal column in an accident, turning him into the multi-armed enemy of his protégé, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire).

“It was a big surprise to me, because it’s not the kind of movie that I imagined myself to be qualified for. You always think of these big action films as [casting] physical types, and I’ve definitely never been that,” Molina says in a Vanity Fair career retrospective. Molina then recounted how Raimi’s wife recommended the actor after seeing him in Frida.

“We had a great meeting. And I kept saying, ‘Look, I’m up for it. But I’ve got to be honest with you, I’ve never done anything like this before. And I’ve certainly never worked on a film with all this technology, I’ve never done much green screen or anything like that,’” Molina continued. “But what swung it was we did a screen test, where they gave me an approximation of the costume — the big leather [harness] with the big trench coat. And then Avi Arad, who at the time was the head of Marvel, takes off his sunglasses and goes, ‘Put these on.’ I put the sunglasses on, and the whole room sort of went, ‘Oh, this could be the image.’ And I think that’s what swung it.”

Like his supervillain predecessor the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Molina’s Doc Ock was a complex character. After his wife, Rosie (Donna Murphy), died in the same accident that bonded his AI-powered arms to his body, Octavius succumbed to his tentacles’ suggestion that they finish what they started — an experiment that threatened to destroy the city with the power of the sun. An unmasked Spider-Man eventually convinced Octavius that his arms turned him into something he’s not: a villain.

“The beautiful thing about a lot of the Marvel villains — and, in fact, a lot of the Marvel heroes — is that they all become so reluctantly,” Molina added. “Otto Octavius has this terrible tragedy in his life which changes things, and so they become these monsters, these villains, almost against their will. And what that does, it gives those characters a real level of humanity. It gives them kind of moral dilemmas to deal with, and there’s always a moment when they’re struggling with that dilemma: ‘Should I carry on doing this? Should I pull back? Am I being a bad person?’ And that was all in the script. Sam wanted to develop that, and it gave the character a depth and something that the audience can hang onto. Because he’s no longer a two-dimensional character. He’s not just the bad guy, he’s actually the bad guy with a kind of emotional life. And that just, I think, makes them so much more interesting.”

Though Octavius sacrificed himself to destroy his self-sustaining sun at the end of Spider-Man 2, the multiverse made it so that Molina could reprise his iconic role nearly two decades later in Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: No Way Home.

“Coming back 17 years later to play the character again, no one was more surprised than me. When they asked me, I said, ‘You realize I’m quite a bit older? I’ve got crow’s feet, I’ve got a wattle, you know, a double chin, I’ve got bad knees,’” Molina recalled. “And [director] Jon Watts and [producer] Amy Pascal said, ‘No, no, it’s your role. We want you back. We can fix all that, we’ll de-age you. We’ve got the technology, we can change everything.”

Molina, 70, embraced the return to a role he thought was a one-off, stepping back into the harness opposite a trio of Spider-Men played by Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and his original Spider-Man 2 co-star Maguire. 

“I was delighted, obviously,” he said. “Apart from the fact that it’s great fun to play, playing that part, in all honesty, completely changed my life. I mean, it did. It just took everything not just to a different level, but also to a whole other group of cinema fans. There’s a fan group that loved all the movies like Chocolat and Enchanted April and Frida and all those movies, and now suddenly the children of those people are kind of digging Fred Molina ’cause he’s playing Doc Ock.”