The PUnisher
On set with the Punisher’s standalone series…
Visiting the Brooklyn set of the Marvel spin-off.
Outside, Brooklyn is all sullen, smudgy skies, January snow dusting sidewalks and car roofs. Inside is darkness, squalor and paranoia. Small Screen is standing in what looks like the ultimate urban crazy’s lair, an industrial rathole decorated in pure Unabomber chic. Rusted pipes snake overhead while broken glass clings to the bars that encircle a central living area – if this is any kind of life. There’s a diseased mattress in the corner, while a toothbrush and a family photo add an improbably domestic touch beneath a grimy high voltage sign.
Who could have made this rancid pit their home? Turn around. There’s a clue on the wall. A rack bristling with weaponry. Handguns. Automatic rifles. It’s either the well-oiled wet dream of a Guns & Ammo subscriber or enough firepower for a one-man crusade against crime… “There’s a little bit of this guy in everybody,” asserts Jon Bernthal, star of The Punisher, the latest shot of street-level superheroics from Marvel and Netflix. “The world we live in right now 100 per cent feels like we’re spiralling out of control.
“I think there’s a reason why we’re drawn to superheroes,” he continues, muscly, corded forearms exposed by
a black tee. “Whether or not they can control the uncontrollable, at least they’re making a stand against it, and they’re doing it their way. This guy speaks to a very basic human desire. It’s primal and I do believe that it’s in all of us. We all sometimes wish we could say ‘I don’t like what you did, so…’ [forms barrel shape with fingers, makes gunshot noise]. What I’m trying to do with this character is take as deep a dive as possible.”
Marvel’s über-vigilante debuted in 1974, a steroidal, skull-chested badass who graduated from Spider-Man bitplayer to anti-hero icon in his own right. Bernthal played him in Season 2 of Daredevil, bringing genuine soul to the tortured Frank Castle, a former elite marine seeking vengeance for the murder of his family.
WAR ON EVERYONE
“Pretty early in the season Frank finds out that the conspiracy that got his family killed is way bigger than he thought and reaches beyond criminals into the government,” teases Steve Lightfoot, showrunner of this 13-episode solo series.
“Our villains come out of that. One thing we talked about early on was that there’s a little bit of a Jason Bourne thing to Frank in that he’s this ex-operative who now has to hide the fact he’s still alive. There are big forces that wish him dead. We’re playing in that territory. What New York gives you, which is great if you’re playing with the conspiracy thriller element, is it’s a huge city for someone to lose themselves in. It’s a fantastic playground for that kind of story.”
Frank’s not alone in the city. As well as tech-head sidekick Micro (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), whose subterranean nerve centre we’re currently skulking in, the show reunites him with Daredevil’s Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, who’s now an investigative journalist. “Karen is always going to be there as a conscience for Frank,” says Woll. “She’s also one of his only allies, one of the only people he can come to. Indeed, she’s one of the only people who knows that he’s alive.”
Is she conflicted about Frank’s brutal methods? “There’s no conflict about his methods,” shares Woll. “They’re wrong. The conflict is,
‘there’s always a pedal that we should press harder. we should always go further, do more’ Jon BErnthAL
‘Does that make him a monster, make him someone we shouldn’t empathise with?’ That’s the view I’ve latched onto. Not so much, ‘It’s good that he’s killing people,’ more, ‘It doesn’t necessarily make him someone we shouldn’t care for or believe in.’”
Viewers can expect The Punisher to be unflinching in its depiction of Frank’s private war. But while it won’t spare us the headshots, exit wounds and kneecappings, showrunner Lightfoot maintains,
“Action works best when it’s part of the story, when it’s not just a fight for a fight’s sake. Something we’ve endeavoured very hard to do is make each action sequence different and very much serve the arc of its episode.”
TOugH TALk
Bernthal, like Frank, wants to take it to the edge. “There is always a pedal that we should press harder,” he tells Total Film. “We should always go further. It’s an unbelievably educated, mature audience, a smart audience, the comic-book audience. I have never met anybody who’s said, ‘Hey, I wish you guys would step off the gas, I wish you would pull back, I wish you would be a little less violent, a little less real.’ I’ve only felt encouragement and people begging me to push harder, go stronger. All I try to do here is say ‘Can we do this more,
more, more?’” Nick Setchfield
The punisher will be on neTflix from 13 ocTober.