The overwhelming feedback from this week’s premiere of Marvel’s The Punisher is that it is hands-down, the best Netflix/Marvel collaboration to date. Which is of course great news for leading man, Jon Bernthal.
An exceptionally talented actor, he’s been steadily working his way up through the film industry and into the public eye for the last decade, and his performance as Frank Castle has finally earned him the critical acclaim and fan love he so badly deserves.
Bernthal first really came into the public eye back in 2010, when he was fortunate enough to snare a recurring role in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed HBO series The Pacific. Brief turns in tense thrillers such as The Ghost and Rampart went on to see him playing notorious The Walking Dead villain Shane Walsh for three seasons, unlocking the doors to a massively impressive Hollywood CV.
Building on further appearances in The Wolf of Wall Street and Fury, Bernthal bagged roles in some of the finest movies to be made in recent memory. Sicario, The Accountant, Wind River, Baby Driver. All hugely impressive supporting pieces, that have lead up to him headlining Marvel’s finest television project in the last decade.
But, you know what they say. Every journey has to start somewhere, and the internet has now managed to throw up an early performance that may make you see this new version of Frank Castle in a slightly different light.
Bernthal started his career way back in 2002 with a string of roles in big name TV shows including CSI and Law And Order. This then graduated to movie work, with a part in World Trade Center in 2007. Things were all progressing quite nicely, and then 2008 happened.
Have you ever heard of the movie Bar Starz? Nope, us neither. A PG-13 comedy about a bunch of hapless teens trying to join a hot group of club goers, there’s nobody of remote interest in the cast list. Nobody that is, other than Jon Bernthal, who plays the outrageous leader of the vain and preening clubbers, Donnie Pintron.
The film’s only known synopsis: Straight-arrow Barry has moved 3000 miles away from lackluster Ohio to attend college in sunny SoCal, and his friend Douglas has come along for the ride. Barry has his education on his mind; Douglas, the consummate mover-and-shaker, plans to make Barry a “Bar Star.” Everyone knows the “Bar Star,” the nightclub denizen that: like James Bond, he knows that every woman wants him, and every random guy wants to be just like him.
Flashing the flesh, fixed up in fur, and eternally babbling on about bass, Bernthal is clearly having a riot of a time playing a socially outrageous club addict. And it’s a performance that’s a million miles away from the dark and brooding role of Frank Castle.
Check out the trailer below, and get ready to laugh your ass off at where Jon Bernthal’s movie career stumbled, before it took off for the stars…
As we said, everyone has to start out somewhere – don’t they?