In an interview with The Dallas-Forth Worth Tribune Howell spoke about the experience of pulling double duty, shooting not only Spider-Man, but his TV series Southland. Going back and forth between the two.
"Southland has been real accommodating. This week will be the end of shooting for the 10 episodes this season, and I'll go back to 'Spider-Man' after that."
Recently Howell's reps indicated that he would be playing a character named Ray, and jumped to Ray Cooper(the father of one of Parker's comic girlfriend Carlie)but Howell is still not giving anything away, only hinting that his character might be more important to the story than we thought..
"I had to sign, basically, a bible about not expressing anything, not talking about details. It's understandable they want to keep things secret. There's so much money in it."
"It's so hard keeping the iPhone out of my pocket on the set, when I want to take photos left and right. The other night, we were on the back lot of Universal, and they had it dressed up to be downtown New York, with steam coming up out of the ground and cabs crowding the street. You'd never have guessed you weren't in New York City. I felt like a kid in the ultimate playground."
Howell can say that his is "not a major role, but it is a poignant, important role."
The fact that he won't/can't reveal his role makes me wonder. If it was just the part of Ray Cooper then why the big mystery? Anyway, it could just mean that Webb has him playing a bigger part in the mythology than the comic's Cooper did. We shall see.