One of the many tragedies of Netflix cancelling their slate of Marvel TV shows is the risk that Jon Bernthal won’t play Frank Castle anymore. The Punisher star’s performance across the two seasons of his own series and Daredevil season 2 was uniformly terrific and it’d be a real shame if he never got to don that skull-adorned bulletproof vest again.
The good news is that Bernthal himself has no intention of letting Frank go. In an interview on his potential future as the Punisher, the actor made clear that the character will always be a part of him and he’s honored to have played the anti-hero for the period that he has so far.
“Frank Castle is 100 percent in my bones and in my heart,” the actor recently told EW. “Over the years, the character has resonated with the law enforcement community and the military community and the comic book audience, and being a part of that I revere and I’m enormously grateful for. Frank Castle, the place where he’s at and the journey where he’s at, is something that I bought into wholeheartedly. He will always have a place in my heart and I will always be very protective of him and that project.”
But would he ever return to the role? Bernthal went on to tell EW that he wouldn’t necessarily jump into whatever form a new Punisher project took as he’s so protective about Castle and would want to make sure he was portraying him the right way. However, if a new movie or TV series met his standards, it seems he’d be willing to return.
“For me, with Frank, it’s really not whether we do it again or not, or whether I play him again or not, it’s about doing it right,” he admits. “I just care so much about getting him right, and that’s kind of where it begins and ends with me. I just give want to give the folks whom he means so much to the Frank Castle that they deserve. That’s sort of where I’m at with it. I love Frank. I always have, I always will.”
By the sounds of it, Bernthal believed in how the Marvel-Netflix show presented the character so if, say, Marvel Studios came to him with a Disney Plus vehicle that maybe depicted him in a different way, he’d have to think twice about signing up for it. The latest reports on the subject say that Marvel’s definitely planning to resurrect the Punisher though, and that Bernthal is expected to return, so hopefully we get an official announcement from Kevin Feige and co. sooner rather than later.
