After several years of doing more than 30 regional and off-Broadway stage productions, actor Jon Bernthal nabbed a succession of work in television and films such as Oliver Stone’s WORLD TRADE CENTER and the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM sequel BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN, in which he played a low-level Chicago gangster named Al Capone (!). But it was 2010 that turned out to be a banner year for Bernthal who landed in such films as Roman Polanski’s THE GHOST WRITER and the comedy DATE NIGHT, as well as made something of a dent in television, co-starring in HBO’s World War II miniseries “The Pacific,” and a fledgling series for AMC called “The Walking Dead,” in which he played Shane Walsh, who quickly becoming a fan favorite.
After leaving the series in the wake of co-creator Frank Darabont’s dismissal from the show, Bernthal began showing up in such films as director Oren Moverman’s RAMPART, SNITCH (opposite Dwayne Johnson), GRUDGE MATCH (as Robert De Niro’s estranged son), Darabont’s return to TV “Mob City,” and Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. But in the last year, Bernthal has been expanding beyond his tough-guy persona without leaving it entirely behind. Last year, he played a nearly feral member of a World War II tank crew in director David Ayer’s FURY; a sympathetic teacher in ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL; civil rights attorney Michael H. Sussman in the HBO miniseries “Show Me A Hero”; a shyster in WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS; and it currently featured in a particularly significant sequence in the Mexican drug war epic SICARIO, in which his character goes from being a potential love interested for Emily Blunt to her worst nightmare to a man who has completely lost all control of his life.
Most of you probably know that, in addition to several film roles Bernthal has already shot for release in 2016—including Gavin O’Connor’s THE ACCOUNTANT and director Gerardo (MISS BALA) Naranjo’s new film VIENA AND THE FANTOMES—Bernthal is presently in production on the second season of Netflix’s “Daredevil” series, in which he’ll play Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, a character who will more than likely be spun off into his own series before too long. For the bulk of our interview, we focused on SICARIO, and I’m warning you now—if you haven’t seen the film, you may want to hold off on reading this interview, since we basically do nothing but talk about SPOILER-FILLED material regarding his character. And with that, please enjoy my chat with Jon Bernthal…
Capone: Hi, Jon.
Jon Bernthal: Hey, Steve. How are you, man? Good to talk to you today.
Capone: Agreed, thanks. I realized as I was writing questions for this, this is going to be a difficult interview to do, because I don’t want to give away too much about your character, but it’s slightly unavoidable. Your character, in a very limited amount of time, goes through a whole lot of emotions and personas, going from this super-stud Arizona cop, that leads into an incredible fight scene, and by the end, you’re a whimpering mess in the back of a car, in the span of about 20 minutes. Which of those was more difficult for you?
JB: [laughs] You know, man, I appreciate that you saw those changes. That’s both the challenge of the plot and why I really wanted to do it. I have to say first that I’m an unbelievable fan of Denis [Villeneuve, director]. I thought PRISONERS was the best film of the year when it came out. I’m a huge fan of INCENDIES and his short films. So when I heard he was doing the movie, I said it didn’t matter what the part was, I just wanted to be a part of it. He’s my guy. I’m a huge Benicio Del Toro fan. Emily Blunt is great; I think the writer [Taylor Sheridan] is great. I really wanted to be a part of this thing.
As far as character, you’re absolutely right. When you do a movie like that, you come on for three or four days, and you’ve got to be a hired assassin—just walk into this thing that’s already going on, and they’ve already established these relationships. Normally you get a buffer scene where you get to know everybody. But in this scene, every single one had to really stakes to it, and they work so different. Really, I credit Denis. I think the job of the director at the end of the day is to create an atmosphere where the best work can happen. Every great one that I’ve worked with—whether it’s Polanski, Scorsese, definitely Denis Villeneuve—what he does is makes it an absolutely great environment to work, where you feel like you can do anything. You can say anything and do anything.
Really, I’ve got to give credit to Emily. You saw the movie, obviously. To do those scenes and to walk in without knowing each other at all, I’m walking on to her movie. I’ve got to pick her up, begin to make love, then we have to fight. For her to remove all of the movie star crap and the “Hey, I’ve been here for a while and you haven’t” crap, she just came in, welcomed me in, made me feel right at home, and that’s a real testament to how great an actor she is and the kind of artist she is that that was important to her. If my performance works, it’s a credit to Denis and Emily. I was very surprised by that. I was very worried going in that if she was a guarded person or precious person or somebody who had their nose up in the air that those would be very difficult things to play. But it was really about coming in, and everybody opened up, and it was an unbelievably, creatively fulfilling experience.
Capone: In the scene when you're still in the bar, there’s a moment in the film where you can’t hear what anyone’s saying at the table, but you’re sitting right next to Emily, and you're holding a beer bottle in a really manly way. I don’t know how else to describe it. You’re holding the bottle by the neck, not by the bottom of it. And you whisper something to her, and without hearing a word, we know exactly what’s going on—by the body language and the way you’re holding the beer bottle. It’s actually ingenious the way you handle that scene.
JB: I appreciate you saying that. And again, I don’t mean to be a broken record, but that’s Denis. That’s why people work with the great directors. What he does is he says “Let’s abandon the script right now, and let’s go tell her a story and make her feel at ease and let me shoot you.” If the way I was holding the bottle that day resonated with you, that’s awesome. What that comes out of is creating an environment where I can be completely at ease and try to talk to Emily, and they’ll shoot it and take what they want and leave what they don’t. It takes Denis seeing that and saying this could be affective. This could resonate.
Capone: Talk about prepping for your fight scene with Emily. It’s not meant to look like a slick fight scene. It’s messy, you’re bumping into stuff, it’s close quarters. How much time did you have to prepare for that, and how much of that is actually the two of you? I assume it’s all the two of you, but maybe I’m wrong about that.
JB: Yeah, 100 percent, like everything else in that movie. I would say more so than any other experience I’ve had, this is the kind of movie where you sort of show up that day and figure out what you’re going to do while you’re doing it. There’s very little planning. Everything was very free. You think you're going to be doing one scene, and the scene turns into something completely different, and you’ve got to be open to that and down with that. Again, that comes from the environment that Denis creates.
One thing that was important to both me and Emily is that we wanted it to look real, look dangerous, and look sloppy and look like it was two people losing control of the situation, not really knowing what was going on. It wasn’t necessarily two people that were trying to hurt each other, it wasn’t good guy against bad guy. There was a great stunt coordinator who had the balls—and Denis had the balls—to let us go. And Emily is the kind of person that will be okay with the physicality of what we shot that day, as far as the beginning of us hooking up into the fight, she really was willing to go for it and she really pushed me to go for it. For me, I’m a pretty big guy. I’ve been training in fighting a long time, so Emily and I were able to go at each other. You’ve really got to trust, and I’ve worked on television shows and movies where I’ve worked with things for three, four, five months where I’m not as comfortable as I was with Emily after two days. Again, I think that’s a real testament to her and Denis.
Capone: Finally, the scene in the back of the car, which is just all different kinds of wrong, because there that character has now lost complete control of the situation, but at the same time you’re getting to work with two of the greatest actors working right now [Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin]. Tell me about how that sequence felt from your perspective.
JB: Yeah, you said it. I’m such a huge fan of both of those guys. I’m blown away by both of them. They’re two of my favorite actors and for totally different reasons. Being in that kind of setting, by that point, you just have to let these great actors affect you, and I think that’s part of why it’s so good. That was not difficult. That all came pretty naturally, and they were completely down to go as real as I wanted to, and I pushed back a little bit before the cameras were rolling. I think the goal here, when you’re working with a filmmaker like this or actors like this, is to try and elevate this little, tiny part a bit more and not just make it, “Oh, he’s the bad guy. Now he’s crying and begging for his life.” You try to add some layers, add he’s got kids, add that this is happening, that’s happening, and you have partners who are all down for that. That’s why I love this job. Really anything can happen just as long as you’re open to it. I don’t know if that answers your question.
Capone: It does. And to add on to that, part of the reason that scene works so well is we do understand in that final moment that he’s not a bad guy. He’s just a guy that’s in way over his head. He’s trapped in a violent world.
JB: Absolutely. It’s a metaphor for the whole movie. It was really important to all of us to really do that. And I think oftentimes, especially with these smaller parts in movies, you just be a set piece. “Okay, we need a bad guy now. We need a little tension, we need the leads to go through it.” You’re part of telling their story, but I think part of the job is to try to make it three dimensional and add as much as you can. Whether it’s just in your preparation or your backstory, I think the great directors and the great filmmakers encourage you. I think Scorsese is the master at this. He’s taken a guy who might just walk into one scene, but lets them say something and do something that conveys a real life. There’s no such thing as good guys and bad guys. Let them be a real person, let them have a real reason to be doing what they’re doing, and I just think it adds so much texture and makes the world of the movie a little bit more real. Again, I know it’s a broken record, but that’s a testament to Denis. He encouraged me and allowed me to do that.
Capone: You mentioned a couple of times some of the directors you’ve worked with, and the list is even longer. You didn’t mention Frank Darabont, Paul Haggis—and I should belatedly congratulate you on “Show Me A Hero,” because it’s one of the greatest things I’ve seen on television in a long time. David Ayer, you worked with recently, Oliver Stone, the list goes on and on. That’s a dream list for someone who’s been acting for 20 years in movies. You can retire on that list. You’ve also worked with some relatively new directors. What you did in ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL was really fun. How do you decide with new directors which ones you’re going to work with with ones that are a little less established?
JB: Thanks man. I think that in the beginning of my career, there was real no rhyme or reason. Right off the jump, I got to work with Oliver and then Polanski. These things really weren’t masterful, genius choices of mine. I was also trying out for all the bullshit rom-com stuff, but I was too mangle-faced to get cast [laughs]. But then I started seeing that these younger guys were the filmmakers that not only gravitated to, but these guys were gravitating towards me too, with more towards serious work.
The whole idea is I want to work on the most exciting projects with the people that excite me, with a cast that excites me. There’s always different reasons for wanting to be a part of something, but when you get a chance to work with these legendary guys, it’s a no-brainer. It’s a dream come true. You’ll fight and claw your way into a room with one of these great geniuses to get a look and to try to work with them. As far as the new guys, you have to do a couple of things. You look at their work, you look at the material that they chose to work on. With Alfonso [Gomez-Rejon, director on ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL] it was just a no brainer. I just worked with a guy named Gerardo Naranjo [on VIENA AND THE FANTOMES], who did this movie called MISS BALA. You watch their films, and you just know.
What I really learned with Ayer is it’s really exciting to work with the greats—to work with Polanski or Scorsese or Darabont—they’re so established; they know exactly who they are. So it’s this wonderful feeling of walking onto the set and just knowing you are completely taken care of. Just do your job, work as hard as you can, but you can turn off all these other parts of you. You can go in and play and do the best you can. These guys know exactly what they’re doing. When you’re talking about a guy more like David Ayer, who will definitely be on this list of guys who will be considered one of the greatest directors of all time, I got him when he was still very hungry. He still looked at this as going to war. He’s got something to prove. There’s something about that that’s even more exciting. I feel the same way with Denis. He will be considered one of the great directors of all time. I’m 100 percent convinced of it. But he’s still out there, hungry as hell and experimenting. He comes in with a wealth of information, but they’re so much vigor. He’s out every day; this is vital to him.
There’s something about working with these guys at that point in their career, which I’m not saying is better or worse, but it’s different and I love it. The same is true with the guys who are at the beginning of their career. The commonality of it is they’re all, in my opinion, geniuses. They’re all genius artists that I’m lucky to work with. To catch a guy or woman at the beginning of their career is really, really exciting, and also you get an opportunity to be a part of their flavor, and you’re also are in a situation where they’ve seen some of your work and they’re very into your suggestions. I think that’s actually true across the board.The best directors I’ve worked with are the people that are the most open, most willing, most collaborative. And definitely the opposite is true—the worst experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve walked away from having he least respect for are the guys who are saying “It’s my way or the highway.” I just think nothing good will ever be created that way. That’s the real fear. That’s what I try to keep away from.
Capone: We were talking before about how your character in SICARIO is this good guy that gets sucked into this world of violence, not unlike who you’re about to play in the next season of the “Daredevil” series. I know you've got to be careful with what you say, but can you give us any idea of what your version of Frank Castle is going to be? What about him do you want to emphasize and bring out about him?
JB: You know, yeah, look, I would love to, but Marvel is no joke about that shit [laughs].
Capone: I had to give it a shot.
JB: Yeah, man, I get it. When I got the job, they were very clear: “You can say nothing.” The only thing I’ll say about it is, I know he means a lot to a lot of people and he means a lot to me, and it’s an honor to play him, and I’m going to work very hard at it.
Capone: So often in these superhero projects when somebody is announced as being cast as a major character, there’s this huge uproar and outrage. But when they announced you, nobody did that. They were like, “Yeah, he’s good. He’s the right guy for that.” So that’s a good sign.
JB: [laughs] Yeah, I hope so. Again, it means a lot, and I think that the character has resonated so much with military and law enforcement around the world. It really means something, and I don’t want to let people down and I’m going to give it my all.
Capone: Awesome. Alright, Jon. Thank you so much for talking, and best of luck with SICARIO.
JB: I appreciate it. Anytime, bro. Talk to you soon.
