Jon Bernthal Hints at Darker Character Development for ‘The Punisher’
With maybe a little over a month before the highly anticipated premiere of The Punisher spinoff series on Netflix, Marvel fans has been buzzing about their various predictions and desires for main character Frank Castle.
It’s safe to assume that he’ll be vastly different from the last time we saw him in the second season of Daredevil, but the show’s plot has been kept tightly under wraps in typical Marvel fashion.
Thankfully, star Jon Bernthal is more than willing to talk about his character. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bernthal shared some insights about the interesting developments that Castle will undertake on his own show.
Source: ‘Marvel’s The Punisher’
Reflecting on his character’s transition from Daredevil to The Punisher, Bernthal states that we will find a Castle trying to turn his life in a new, more focused direction of action:
The Frank Castle you see in Daredevil is reeling from the trauma of having his family killed, so the only thing he knows is his mission to kill every single person who’s responsible for his family’s death, and killing them in the most brutal way possible, because that’s the only way to quiet the storm that’s in his head. He can only quiet it momentarily by taking these people out.
He’s a man on a mission again, and what [Punisher showrunner Steve] Lightfoot is trying to do is ask the question “What do you do when that’s over? What do you find out about yourself when you realize there’s nothing left? What is his purpose?” There’s an introspective bent in trying to figure that out. He finds something to fight for, something new to believe in.
Bernthal further hints that Castle will be confronting numerous types of conflict in this first season, including the trauma of his past, his own darkness due to his vengeful actions, and an omnipresent external villain of the series. He specifically says that:
During this show, nobody is who they appear to be… This season is much darker as it goes, it gets darker and darker and more visceral. The show takes you on this journey of Frank becoming more and more human again and then shutting off and shutting off and going back to what works for him, and the place where he kind of belongs, and I think that’s a place of solitude and of darkness and destruction. It’s going to get into as dark and as brutal a place as you’ve ever seen in the Marvel world, I can promise you that.
What do you think of Frank Castle’s character development thus far through Marvel’s television universe? Are you excited to see his latest developments, or are you worried that The Punisher won’t do justice to this iconic antihero? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Marvel’s The Punisher is set to premiere sometime in November 2017
Source: Entertainment Weekly
