The 2026 Montreal Comiccon opened up for me with a Q&A with Nadji Jeter, perhaps best known as the voice and motion capture performer for Miles Morales in the Insomniac Spider-Man games. A fellow 90s baby, the youthful spirit came to town with plenty of energy, humility and anticipation for things to come, as well as a deep reverence and respect for the web-slinger he gets to play on the PlayStation console.
What sticks with him most about being Miles Morales is that he’s one of the actors who gets to carry the weight and impact of being such an inspirational character for so many kids, as well as African American and Puerto Rican culture. As he got to debut his turn as Miles Morales during COVID, he knows that a lot of people had the time to get to know his interpretation of the character and his grateful that over the past few years, he has been able to connect more with fans who were impacted by his role during those times. Many of the fans in attendance expressed how they thought Nadji’s turn as Miles was not only their favourite portrayal of the character, but their favourite Spider-Man in general, something Nadji was very humble and grateful to hear.
While he would love to dabble more into live-action cinema, something he already feels confident in doing thanks to his work doing motion capture, he would also like to break into a musical career and bring his band to a wider audience, where he plays guitar and supplies vocals. But if he were to make the break to full-on live-action acting, he would love to share the screen with either Denzel Washington, Johnny Depp, or Robert Downey Jr. He would also like to get more involved in the stunt work, something he wasn’t really allowed to participate in from an insurance point of view while working on Spider-Man, but would love to be able to learn more of the moves to embody his characters, like Miles, even more beyond dialogue scenes. And yet, even when he sees himself as Miles, he still finds it weird, but has grown to learn to love who he is and accepts that his face is one of the faces of Miles Morales.
When talking about Spider-Man, it was inevitable that the question of which Spider-Man is his personal favourite, as well as which movie would be his. Being a 90s kid, the Tobey Maguire iteration marks his favourite webslinger, and Spider-Man 3, of all movies, is his favourite. But the most impactful character to him personally as a character was Venom during Spider-Man, as he was voiced by the late, great Tony Todd, who acted as a mentor to Nadjl and was a source of great devastation when he passed away.
Being raised by a single mother and having no siblings, he got lost heavily into toys and comics as a youth, which of course was a gateway to cinema and thus, acting. He considers his work in mo-cap to be akin to live-action acting, but just ever so adjacent. Unlike pure voice-over work, he actually has to be physical with his performance too, and the end result, with Miles at least, is that it’s his face bringing the character to life. In regards to mo-cap, he stresses that having a strong imagination is key to help bring the world around to life, as a studio for that kind of acting isn’t the same as a traditional set. Even something as trivial as a water bottle isn’t really a water bottle on a mo-cap stage, so you have to get lost in your mind to make it real. Considering his upbringing with a single mother, he was able to tap into the shared bond of emotional pain between Miles and Peter, both of whom lost male authority figures at some point in their lives within the games, so he was able to tap into that vulnerability for Miles as well.
As a Nike sneaker freaker, Nadji was championing a partnership with the company for the games, but still loves the partnership they forged with Adidas instead. He loves that Adidas even made a custom Spider-Man suit inspired by the sneakers, which started as a shell toe in the game for those who love sneaker facts.
The conversation then pivoted to his small time on The Last of Us videogame, where he played Sam. This served as his introduction to motion capture, as he was thirteen or fourteen while doing the game, and at that age, the whole experience was akin to being in a candy store. He was going to be in a video game! He was also able to learn a lot from Troy Baker and Ashley Johnston, and, considering he was a teenager, they would help him with his homework between takes while on set. None of them knew the impact that game would have on the gaming community when they were making it.
And that sums up our first wrap-up for the 2026 Montreal Comiccon! Stay tuned in the days to come for even more coverage of the panels we attended!
