'Spider-Man' star J.K. Simmons negotiated J. Jonah Jameson's mustache after he was told they were changing his iconic look

• J.K. Simmons returns as J. Jonah Jameson in "Spider-Man: No Way Home."
• When he was asked to reprise his role, he was told they wanted Jameson to look different.

J.K. Simmons is reprising his role as Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson in December's "Spider-Man: No Way Home," but he won't look like the Jameson fans remember from Tobey Maguire's Spidey trilogy.

The distinguished flat-top haircut is gone. Instead, Jameson, now the host of TheDailyBugle.net, is balding.

It's a look the actor originally questioned when he was asked to return to the role as a secret cameo at the end of 2019's "Spider-Man: Far From Home" before joining "No Way Home."

"Honestly, I kind of wish he still had the same hair," Simmons said in a new interview with Josh Horowitz on the "Happy, Sad, Confused" podcast.

Simmons said returning for "Far From Home" seemed like a bit of a last-minute addition. By the time he had a meeting with "all the big wigs at Sony" and they were in agreement about his return, he was told they were filming his scene "the day after tomorrow."

There were just a few other details.

"No, we don't want you to have the flat-top hair cut and I was like, 'Wait, wait, wait. What?'" Simmons said when he learned they wanted Jameson to have a different look when he reprised the character.

"Yeah, we don't want the cigar and the mustache," Simmons said he was a bit thrown off since those are staples of the newspaper editor's comic-book character. "So, it was a negotiation then at that point."

Simmons didn't win on the hair, but, as you can see in "Far From Home" and the "No Way Home" trailers, he does have the 'stache.

"Obviously, the most important thing is that he's still the same blowhard and he does have the same damn mustache, close to it, and cigar at least," Simmons said.

The actor told Collider in 2020 he was "very attached" to what he previously did with Jameson in the Tobey Maguire Spidey trilogy, but because they needed to film his cameo in a quick turnaround they didn't have time to make him a wig. Losing the hair was part of the compromise.

Do the subtle changes mean we're seeing a totally different version of Jameson in "No Way Home?"

"I think it's a slightly different version," Simmons said of the Jameson we'll see on screen. "Certainly, from the creators of this iteration of the story, it's a very different character. To me, it's a slightly different character. It's the same blowhard... the same guy with less hair."

That makes sense as "No Way Home" is leaning into the introduction of the multiverse.

Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, and Willem Dafoe join Simmons in reprising their characters from Sony's other "Spider-Man" movies to collide with Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker in the new film.

In the film, out next month, Peter is trying to get Doctor Strange to cast a spell so everyone forgets he's Spider-Man. Unfortunately, the spell goes awry and, somehow, characters from previous Spider-Man films enter Peter's world.

Simmons is likely playing a multiverse version of Jameson in "No Way Home" who exists in Tom Holland's Spidey universe, but is slightly different from his Tobey Maguire character. You can rest assured that the top-cut Jameson likely still exists in Sony's SpiderVerse. Maybe we'll even get to see him.

Simmons teased not to expect to see too much of Jameson in the sequel, though.

"As is appropriate for that character, he's just a little kind of comic relief thing that gets sprinkled lightly into the movie," Simmons said of his character.

For now, you can get your fix of J.J. Jameson on a new Tik Tok channel for The Daily Bugle, which launched this week.

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" is in theaters December 17.