In a conversation that’s likely to give poor Kevin Feige an aneurysm, veteran actor Alfred Molina has revealed details of his role in the upcoming Spider-Man sequel No Way Home.

Speaking to Variety last week, he was more than happy to share some information about his return as the villainous Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus. Molina previously played the character in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 all the way back in 2004, and is set to reprise the role in this year’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third instalment in Marvel and Sony’s new Spider-Man trilogy.

It’s worth stating at this point that Molina’s involvement in the film had never been confirmed until now: rumours were rife late last year, but neither Marvel nor Sony had commented on Molina’s casting. Molina admits that it was “supposed to be some great big secret,” but feels comfortable discussing it now that it’s “all over the internet.” Those infamous Marvel snipers have clearly been given some time off thanks to the pandemic…

Perhaps the biggest reveal from the conversation was that of No Way Home picking up from “that moment” in Spider-Man 2 in which Octavius sacrifices himself and drowns. If you recall from that film, he comes to his senses in his closing moments and decides to destroy the experimental fusion reactor he and his mechanical tentacles had created.

We also learned that Molina will be digitally de-aged for the film, in the vein of Samuel L Jackson’s appearance in Captain Marvel, which took place in the 1990s. the actor is now 67, and admits he was initially worried about the role’s physicality, before he remembered “it’s the tentacles that do all the work!”

“My basic physical move as Doc Ock, as the actor, is just this,” he said, before glaring intensely at his webcam and making a menacing noise. “I just do that a lot, and the arms are doing all the killing and smashing and breaking. I’m just going —” he glares, “with a kind of mean look on my face.”

Molina joins previous Spider-Man actors Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon in the film, which is also rumoured to feature Jamie Foxx’s Electro (from 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2), as well as previous Spider-Men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Spider-Man: No Way Home swings into cinemas in December 2021.