Jon Bernthal reveals the difference between making Marvel movies and TV: 'I was blown away'

The Punisher actor reflects on shooting his first Marvel movie after a decade on streaming

Jon Bernthal has been playing the definitive version of Marvel's ruthless vigilante, Frank Castle, ever since he showed up in season 2 of Daredevil on Netflix back in 2016. From the very start, Bernthal brought a perfect blend of unpredictable, righteous violence to the anti-hero known as The Punisher, but on July 31, he faces his biggest challenge yet: a Marvel movie.

Bernthal's Punisher appears alongside Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day from Sony and Marvel Studios. This might seem like just another day at work for an actor who's been fighting crime in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a full decade, but the experience of making a capital-M Movie still came as a shock.

"Oh, man, it's just completely different," Bernthal tells Polygon. "These guys really have the expertise. Not that the expertise isn't there in Marvel TV, but the space, the bandwidth, the budget. Anything is possible. I was blown away every day walking onto those sets."

Not only did the experience of filming Spider-Man: Brand New Day blow him away, it also revealed just how big the gap is between Marvel's film and TV productions.

"When you're shooting Marvel TV, we're attempting movie-level action on a TV budget and timeframe," Bernthal says. "So it is go, go, go. You do not have time. You have to make it work. What I loved about this is, it was the same intensity, the same dedication to making this great, the same fervor to get it right, but with the bandwidth to really do it."

The actor specifically praises Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, director Destin Daniel Cretton, and producer Amy Pascal for being willing to stop the production in its tracks to get things right.

"There were so many times we stopped and just slowed everything down to make the scenes work," Bernthal says. "It's a real testament to Tom and Destin and Amy, and to everybody there."

Speaking of Tom Holland, Bernthal also took the opportunity to note that, of all the many characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the hero he's always wanted to team up with the most is Holland's webslinger.

"Whenever I'm asked by journalists or by fans: 'Who's sort of the one superhero you…?' I always say Spider-Man. Because I love Tom. I love what he's built. I love who he is."

---

Spider-Man: Brand New Day premieres in theaters on July 31.