Jon Bernthal Literally Set Himself on Fire for ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’

The actor and co-writer/director Reinaldo Marcus Green go behind the scenes of their ‘action-packed’ Marvel Television special presentation.

BY Devan Coggan

Jon Bernthal knows Frank Castle inside and out.

The actor has played the Punisher for a decade now, first appearing in the original Daredevil TV series in 2016, before starring in two seasons of his own titular show. More recently, Bernthal reprised the role in Season 1 of Marvel Television’s Daredevil: Born Again, reintroducing fans to his complex vigilante.

Now, Frank is stepping back into the spotlight with an all-new story: A Marvel Television Special Presentation: The Punisher: One Last Kill.

The new special (streaming now on Disney+) finds Frank in a dark place, haunted by memories of military combat and the pain of losing his family to mob violence. For years, Frank has devoted his life to vengeance, taking out criminals as a brutal vigilante. But years of violence have left him feeling hollow, and he soon realizes that he has a new target on his back, as the scheming Ma Gnucci (Judith Light) seeks a revenge of her own.

“I hope it’s inspiring to people,” Bernthal says of One Last Kill. “I hope that it reaches people who are in pain. I hope it honors the veterans’ community. I hope it honors the comic book fans that love Frank so much. And I also hope that it’s a fun, action-packed ride.”

Bernthal co-wrote One Last Kill with Reinaldo Marcus Green, who also directs. The pair are longtime friends and collaborators, and they first crossed paths years ago, when they met at a café to discuss working together on the 2021 tennis film King Richard. That was a very different role for Bernthal, but even from that first meeting, Green remembers seeing shades of Frank Castle in the actor’s eyes.

“He showed up essentially as the Punisher then,” Green remembers with a laugh. “He had a hoodie on and a pit bull in the front seat. I was like, ‘Who is this guy?’ He was pretty big and jacked! But from the moment we met, what I saw in John was that humanity. He’s a father and a husband. All the things that I love about him were poured into who Frank is when we meet him.”

While writing the special, Bernthal leaned heavily on Frank’s military history, consulting and training with real-life veterans like ex-Marine Raiders Nick Koumalatsos and Cody Alford and former Green Beret Colton Hill. Bernthal says these consultants provided invaluable insight into Frank’s psyche and helped shape both the story and the action scenes.

“There’s a psychological condition called anomie that plagues a lot of veterans, especially veterans from the Special Forces community,” Bernthal says. “It’s this feeling of complete and utter hopelessness and a breaking of the pillars of society that you once believed in — whether that’s religion, family, or in these guys’ cases, the military in general. It’s this unbelievably overwhelming feeling that you’re the cause of all the world’s pain and this fundamental belief that the world would be better off without you in it. Over 90 percent of the time, folks who have this condition, it leads to suicide.”

“That’s really where I wanted to start with Frank,” Bernthal continues. “There’s been all these different iterations of his story, but I’ve always asked myself: How do you keep going? What do you do when you’ve killed the last person? What do you do when you’ve been just spiraling and reeling from this unbelievable wound of having your family taken from you? You’ve set your life on vengeance and making those who were responsible pay. What do you do when there’s no one left?”

Bernthal and Green also found inspiration in the pages of Marvel Comics, particularly Garth Ennis’ iconic run on the character. Green grew up reading comic books, and when he first signed on to One Last Kill, he went home and asked his mom to help him locate some of his old issues. Up in his mother’s attic, he found an old suitcase packed with his and his brother’s original comics.

“I opened it up, and the dust was falling off of it,” he remembers. “And there on the top is the Punisher. I was like, ‘Wait, Ma, did you put those there? How is this possible?’ There were other comic books in there, X-Men and all this stuff. But somehow Punisher was on the top of the pile. So, maybe it was written in the stars that I was supposed to do this.”

Of course, you can’t tell a story about the Punisher without embracing the action. One Last Kill is a no-holds-barred fight for survival, as Frank faces off against hordes of enemies. “The hardest thing and perhaps one of the most special things about this is that with Frank, there’s no masks,” Bernthal explains. “When we’re doing the action, I’m doing it.”

That meant Bernthal had to bring the heat — sometimes literally.

“John is an incredible talent and a great stuntman himself,” Green says. “It helps when your lead actor is willing to set himself on fire and throw himself off buildings.”

Up next, Bernthal will be bringing Frank to the big screen, appearing alongside Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (in theaters July 31). The actor notes that the upcoming Spider-Man film is “very different tonally” from One Last Kill, but he wanted Frank’s characterization to remain consistent across projects.

“It was really important to me that the same guy from Spider-Man could walk off that set and walk on to the Punisher’s set, and vice versa,” Bernthal says. “I hope we’ve achieved that. I hope we’re able to see different sides of him through it all, but the approach is always the same.”

And who better to shepherd the Punisher’s journey than the actor who’s spent a decade bringing him to life? As Green puts it: “There’s no greater expert on the character of Frank Castle than Jon himself.”