Frank Castle is Marvel’s most complicated antihero. He’s a military veteran who returns home from the war, only to find a new one waiting for him when his family is murdered after they witness a mob killing. So, he arms himself to the teeth and enacts revenge on the city’s criminals while wearing a skull and crossbones emblem on his chest. It’s a story about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and loneliness, wrapped in a bundle of crazy cartoon violence. (Imagine if Rambo pointed the barrel of his gun at Spider-Man.) And no one’s ever played the character on screen better than Jon Bernthal.
In The Punisher: One Last Kill, a new film on Disney+ that continues the character’s story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Bernthal portrays Frank Castle at rock bottom. He’s attempting to live a life without wanton killing when he’s drawn into another violent conflict. According to Bernthal—who also wrote and executive-produced the special–it’s a story about the difficulties that special forces veterans go through when they feel their purpose slipping away. It’s a battle, he says, that too often ends in suicide.
“You cut ties with every pillar of belief, whether it’s religion, whether it’s the Marine Corps, whether it’s your family,” Bernthal tells Esquire in our latest digital cover story. “Basically anything that was important to you, you start to see as a corruption. You look at yourself as the reasons for the problems in the world around you, and 99 percent of the time it results in suicide.”
It sounds like dark material for a Disney+ product that lives alongside Zootopia and Grogu, but comic book fans absolutely eat up Bernthal’s take on the character. He’s played Frank Castle since Daredevil season 2 in 2016, which led to two seasons of his own series, a cameo in Daredevil: Born Again, and now One Last Kill, premiering on Disney+ on Tuesday, May 12 at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT.
“I really wanted to show what do you do when you dedicated your life to something and there’s just nothing more to do,” he says of the Punisher’s latest story. “It’s super dark. It’s like a super fucking dark thing….We’re in a place where I do think that this is the level of psychological complexity and just blunt violence that the fans really want for this character.”
Luckily for Bernthal, One Last Kill is nowhere near his last appearance as Frank Castle. The Punisher will also fit into Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s story this July—though plot details for the film are still under wraps. Trailers so far show the two characters coming to blows as they seemingly chase the same criminal. But if Bernthal continues working with Marvel, I heavily doubt that a Spider-Man film will mark his last appearance as the Punisher.
“I’m really down to keep doing more,” Bernthal tells Esquire, “but I think I have to be the one that’s making it.”
