Warning: This article contains spoilers from Daredevil: Born Again season 1, episode 4.
Matt Murdock’s reunion with Frank Castle on the fourth episode of Daredevil: Born Again isn’t exactly warm. In his pursuit to find the one who killed Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes) with a bullet emblazoned with the Punisher’s skull insignia, Charlie Cox‘s blind attorney tracks down the Punisher himself — who nearly hacks off his head with an axe. (And hello to you, too, old chum!)
For as hostile as the scene began, marking Jon Bernthal‘s first time in the role since Netflix’s The Punisher went off streaming in 2019, Bernthal considers this “just a toe dip” of a reintroduction to the character. “It was like, Let’s see if this works,” the actor tells Entertainment Weekly in an exclusive interview. “Let’s see if there’s a real openness and a hunger to let Frank be what Frank is, which is dark enough to have the courage and the boldness to turn your back on the audience and to make it difficult, to make it enormously psychologically complex and to steer away from any cuteness or humor and to really go full bore.”
It already appears to be working. In addition to Daredevil: Born Again season 2, Marvel gave Bernthal the go-ahead to write and star in a standalone Punisher TV special in the vein of Werewolf by Night. So even though his big episode 4 moment only lasts a scene (at least for now), Bernthal admits, “I feel like it’s opened the door to getting closer to the Frank Castle that I really, really want to portray.”
Bernthal’s own reunion with his character wasn’t quite as volatile as Mr. Murdock’s, but there was a time when it felt on shaky ground. It’s no secret that Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again underwent a significant overhaul after filming six episodes. Bernthal was approached with that first incarnation of the show, which felt more like a procedural and less connected to the mythology of the original Daredevil series on Netflix. “Ultimately, I didn’t see it. I didn’t see the version of Frank, and what they wanted from Frank [didn’t] really make sense to me and I thought would not appeal to the fans and wouldn’t be congruent,” the actor explains. “It was not something I was really interested in doing. So we had to walk away.”
Jon Bernthal filming on the set of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ season 1 in Brooklyn. Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
After hiring new lead writers and bringing on Bernthal’s The Punisher scribe and executive producer Dario Scardapane as showrunner, Marvel came back around. And this time, they were more collaborative with Bernthal in developing the character. “They really brought me into the conversation,” he says. “We really got specific about where Frank is psychologically, where Frank’s at physically.”
Bernthal credits Scardapane; second unit director Phil Silvera, who, he says, “helped define Frank’s physicality” on Netflix’s Daredevil; his stunt double, Eric Linden; and Nick Koumalatsos, a Marine Raider who Bernthal feels was “instrumental” both “training-wise and psychologically.” This combination gave way to the Frank that Bernthal wanted to deliver, which is the character he’s seen resonate over the years across the comic book, military, and law enforcement communities. “Sometimes you have to be very, very clear with your intentions in this business,” he says. “You can’t get confused with how much you love something, how much you love playing something, how much you want to do something. You got to make sure you’re serving it. You got to make sure you’re doing justice to the people that believe in it and doing justice to the iterations that have come before you.”
In Daredevil: Born Again, Frank becomes the devil on the Devil’s shoulder. Though he may have maimed a few corrupt cops in his pursuit of justice, Matt Murdock is fighting to keep his inner demons in check. Then here comes the Punisher, who is barking for Daredevil to come back out to play.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Jon Bernthal at the 3rd Annual Academy Museum Gala at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Kevin Winter/WireImage
“There’s a little bit of Frank in all of us; I genuinely believe that,” Bernthal remarks of this scene. “Like that line, ‘We’re all one bad day away from being me.’ I think that Frank is seeing himself in Matt, and Matt knows that he’s seeing Frank in himself, and there’s a glee in that. But also, Frank really has no time for the gray. He has no time for figuring things out or obsessing over things. Frank really believes that the back and forth and the twisting and turning that Matt does is antithetical from his truth, and he knows it. For Frank, there’s nothing like having that bit of wisdom over Matt and torturing him about it because he knows that he’s right.”
Bernthal is now eager to do a lot more with this character. He re-teams with director Reinaldo Marcus Green, who’s at the helm of the Punisher TV special for Disney+ after the two collaborated on King Richard and We Own This City. The actor also says he brought back Koumalatsos as a consult. Though Bernthal has been quietly working on a series about Shreveport, La., as well as “another thing” coming up, this Marvel special will be the first produced work based on something that he wrote.
“I went through the process,” he says. “I went in, I pitched, I gave an outline before I even put pen to page, and I felt like I did not want them to just hand it to me. They had read some of my writing, asked to come and do a pitch, so I did. And they’ve held me accountable to every step along the way. I really want to earn this and I really want this to be good. The story that we’ve laid out is, I think, really special. It’s the visceral, psychologically complex, unforgiving, no-holds-barred version of Frank where he’s going to turn his back to the audience. And nothing is easy and all violence has a cost, and we’re going to see that cost. I’m grateful that they’re letting me go to the places that I really want to go.”
Bernthal isn’t sure just how much he can say about his future as the Punisher, but he’s grateful to have a hand on the wheel. “What I really appreciate with these guys is that they have their vision,” he adds, “they have an idea of where they want him to go and the world in which they want him to exist. But they’re really giving me agency on how we get him there and making sure that it’s honest and authentic and truthful.”
