Jon Bernthal opens up about heartbreaking Frank Castle arc in 'The Punisher: One Last Kill' ahead of premiere
Jon Bernthal is gearing up to once again take up the cudgels as 'The Punisher' in the upcoming Disney+ special 'The Punisher: One Last Kill.' However, it seems that this time, the hard-hitting vigilante's struggle might be directed as much inward as towards the unfortunate bad guys waiting to be tortured by Frank Castle. The 49-year-old actor recently sat down for a comprehensive interview with Entertainment Weekly, during which he opened up about his character's journey in the upcoming television special and revealed his approach to putting 'The Punisher: One Last Kill' together.
Bernthal remarked, "I just think this version is… It’s always with Frank, kinda digging into the essential question of who he is. Is he really this grieving father and husband? Or is he a man who's most comfortable knee-deep in blood and guts?" He further added, "There's always been this sort of effort, I think, to try to get him to this next stage beyond the spiraling, reeling, kind of vigilante who's just trying to make people pay to sort of suppress his own trauma, and how can we get him kind of past that place and actually start to act upon things like justice…? And that's what we do." Reaching that place, nevertheless, won't be easy, since Bernthal also indicated "We're really honing in on him kind of at his end, when he doesn't know what to do and he's completely sort of enveloped in hopelessness. That's kind of the place where this piece picks up."
Bernthal was most recently seen as the unforgiving vigilante character in the debut season of 'Daredevil: Born Again'. He didn't appear alongside Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock in Season 2 of the show sophomore season, since 'One Last Kill' is narratively set in the same timeline, according to Head of Marvel Television Brad Winderbaum. It is interesting to note that Bernthal wrote the script for 'One Last Kill' himself and in association with Reinaldo Marcus Green, with whom he had previously collaborated on 'We Own This City'. Green also doubles up as the director. Fans of the franchise were, however, not impressed with Bernthal's latest outing as the vigilante. Taking to X, one user wrote, "10 years of this dude playing Frank and he still hasn’t even fully embraced being the Punisher yet…" while another commented, "I'm getting so sick of Jon bernthal's punisher, not being the punisher." A third user commented, "My excitement just died, what’s the point of heroes NOT wearing their costumes?? Stop trying to make comic movies like the real world!"
In an earlier interview from March 2025, Bernthal had outlined how he immersed himself entirely in the making of 'One Last Kill.' He commented, "I went through the process, I went in, I pitched, I gave an outline before I even put pen to page, and I felt like I did not want them to just hand it to me. They had read some of my writing, asked to come and do a pitch, so I did. And they've held me accountable to every step along the way. I really want to earn this and I really want this to be good." 'The Punisher: One Last Kill' drops on Disney+ on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.
