Jon Bernthal talks training next to fellow ‘Punisher’ Thomas Jane (exclusive)

What’s better than one Frank Castle? How about two Frank Castles shooting guns right next to each other?

While that sounds like a situation ripped from the pages of a Punisher comic book, it actually happened in real life with former Punisher movie star Thomas Jane and current Punisher and Daredevil: Born Again TV star Jon Bernthal.

While some reports claimed that the two Franks trained together at a gun range, Bernthal told Entertainment Weekly exclusively while at D23 2024 that they were actually just training next to each other. But regardless, they absolutely talked about Frank.

“Oh jeez. That is a whole hodge-podge of s— you’re not really supposed to talk [about],” Bernthal said with a laugh. “We trained the same day at the gun range together. While I was training for this, he happened to be there. But it was an incredible opportunity to be with him and get his take on it and an honor to be with him. He’s someone I respect. I respect him deeply, and we had a great time.”

Jane was the second actor to portray the Marvel antihero in live-action (Dolph Lundgren was the first in 1989) when he starred in the gritty 2004 movie The Punisher. Ray Stevenson then took on the iconic character in 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, and then Bernthal debuted in season 2 of Netflix’s Daredevil series before spinning off into his own The Punisher series for another two seasons. 

Now Bernthal is back as the gunslinging military vet in Disney+’s revival Daredevil: Born Again, six years after the original Netflix series was canceled in 2018. In addition to Bernthal, Charlie Cox‘s titular blind crimefighter Matt Murdock will also return, along with his friends/coworkers Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Franklin “Foggy” Nelson (Elden Henson), and supervillain Kingpin a.k.a Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). Cox has already reprised his role as Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, while D’Onofrio has already returned as Fisk in Hawkeye and Echo. 

D’Onofrio joked to EW that the fact that all five of these actors are “in the same room at the same time” in the new Disney+ series is enough of a connection to the original Netflix run, but then he got serious about how the revival will call back to the previous show. “There are storylines that reach back to the original series,” he said. “Where our characters are coming from, where we are, and where we’re going, some of those threads lead back.”

Cox loved having “a shared character history” between the series because “it gives such texture.”

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“But at the same time, it can be an enemy, because that is the stuff that’s left behind you as you go forward and then you’re tied to it,” he added. “I felt like the writers and [showrunner] Dario [Scardapane] did a really amazing job at finding a way for us to have our history, to have our connections, but not dwelling on it so much that you are tied to it the whole time.”

Bernthal said that any “enormous leaps” taken with Frank or any other character isn’t done without explanation — “And not in a spoon-fed, candy-ass way,” he added. “If there were things that were much different, … it was done for a reason and very intentional. It wasn’t just huge jumps. I do continue to be blown away by how respectful this group [is] and how much these folks who lead this show demand that we’re respectful to the fans.”

Woll also promised that “our history stands” in regard to the previous three seasons. “What the characters went through still exists, that’s still part of who they are, it’s just that now we’re catching up with them at a different point in their lives,” she said.

Daredevil: Born Again is set to premiere March 2025 on Disney+.