About two years ago, I had a quick conversation with the great actor Jon Bernthal about a movie in which he had a powerful supporting part, SICARIO, and it reminded me that he puts as much energy and talent into drop-in roles as he does when he’s more of a lead or co-star. Check him out more recent works like GRUDGE MATCH or FURY or ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL or HBO’s “Show Me a Hero” minseries.
Just this summer, Bernthal has had smaller but quite memorable roles in BABY DRIVER and the recent WIND RIVER, with bigger parts in this month’s SHOT CALLER and PILGRIMAGE, the latter of which is the subject of this interview. I can’t wait to see what he brings to his recently filmed solo Netflix series in which he plays Frank Castle, aka “The Punisher.” And he may have one more film for us this year in VIENA AND THE FANTOMES, from MISS BALA writer-director Gerardo Naranjo.
PILGRIMAGE (in select theaters and currently available on VOD and Digital HD) is a film about a group of monks living in Ireland circa the 13th century, who are tasked with carrying a sacred object across the country through many dangers to deliver it to place where it may eventually reach the pope. Bernthal plays a mysterious character called The Mute (for obvious reasons), who has dedicated his life to serving the monks, some of whom are played by Tom Holland, John Lynch, and Hugh O’Conor. Richard Armitage plays a member of the French nobility that is hellbent on stealing the object, killing whomever needs killing to get it. The intensely violent work comes courtesy of director Brendan Muldowney, who has explored violence in previous works LOVE ETERNAL and SAVAGE. I spent most of my brief time talking to Bernthal about this film, which is genuinely unusual and interesting addition to his filmography. Please enjoy my chat with Jon Bernthal…
Capone: Hey, Jon. How are you?
Jon Bernthal: Hey, Steve. Alright, man. Thanks for talking to me.
Capone: Of course. I think when we spoke last, it was for SICARIO. It was an awesome talk, but at that point, you couldn’t really talk about “Punisher.” You were very shifty about details.
JB: [laughs] Yeah, well, I’m in the same boat, man.
Capone: I know. I just saw WIND RIVER this week, so I feel like I’ve seen a lot of you lately, and I’ve seen BABY DRIVER a few times this summer because I love it, but it brings up an interesting point about your career right now. There are some movies where you are brought in as the secret weapon for a key scene, or a key sequence, just to blow open the movie, and then there are other films, like PILGRIMAGE, where you’re there for the whole time. Do you approach those roles where you have a limited amount of time to make an impression, verses the whole run of the film?
JB: The short answer is no. One of the things I’m enormously proud of in my career and that I do try to adhere to 100 percent is, I trained in the Moscow Art Theatre, that’s where I got my whole basis for doing this, and that’s where the phrase is really coined: “There’s no such thing as a small part; there are only small actors.” What I really decide to do is, no matter how much screen time you get, to really try to fill that character with a real history. I think often times with a small part with less screen time, you get this opportunity to leave the audience wanting so much more, but the challenge there is to really try to work with the other actors and create a character that you know is existing before that and you know is existing after that scene, and to drop in little hints and bits of life before and after, not just servicing the story as is. I think you do more service, and you have an opportunity to add to the authenticity of the world, by really pouring all of it into a one-scene character and making him rich and again giving him a sense of history.
With a character like this in PILGRIMAGE, it’s a different challenge. You’ve got this guy who I play a lot of the times—very big, physical parts and playing a character that really just wants to disappear, and you take away the use of voice. It required for me to rely on a different group of muscles than I’m normally relying on, and I fell in love with the script that Jamie Hannigan wrote. It’s a script that has about six different languages in it, and I thought the opportunity to create my own language—the language of this mute—was an interesting challenge. It scared the hell out of me, and that’s precisely how I did it.
Capone: It’s fascinating watching you have one of your most precious gifts as an actor taken away from you, especially in a film where there are languages and accents flying in every direction. What adjustments do you make when you don’t get to have a voice?
JB: Well, look, you’ve got to listen. That’s first and foremost. When I got onto of the film, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to speak on set or off. I think that was unbelievably beneficial for me in the beginning. I did about the first two weeks like that. We were all staying in a very remote part of western Ireland. We were all staying under the same roof, there was no escape. There was no electricity, there was no internet, there’s no TV, there’s no town. We were all just there. It was a challenge to be on set all day silent, around the dinner table at night and be silent. I learned an enormous amount about myself and about the character and why we talk, and it was unbelievably helpful.
I think after a couple of weeks, I decided that this experiment and this thing that I was doing to enhance my performance or to gain knowledge of my performance was hurting the film. I think that not being able to communicate with the director was hard. It was hurting us, because here I was having to create my own language, and I felt that we were missing things that I was doing, and because I couldn’t go to the director and say, “Hey, by the way, I know you’re shooting this line and this line, but when he says that, I’m doing this. You’ve got to cover that from this angle.”
Taking that away added to my understanding of the character and my understanding of this is this guy that has divorced himself from his wants and needs. He can’t ask for a glass of water. You want the glass of water, and then you say “I can’t ask for this glass of water.” Then you go “Do I really deserve that glass of water? Do I really need that glass of water?” And I think that’s where this character lies. So it was great to experience that, but after a few weeks, I decided to abandon that, especially when we got more in the physical stuff—I felt like my voice, I needed to talk on set. I will say, to a T, every one of my cast mates liked me better when I was silent than when I was talking.
[Both laugh]
Capone: So this story of these monks dragging this object across this country, it certainly says something about the value we put on objects, especially in a religious context. What do you think this film about these 13th century monks has to say to a modern audience?
JB: Yeah, I think so and I hope so. I think that with my character, especially, I think that he’s a guy that has seen the unbelievable affect that religion can have on human beings. He’s experienced the sublime transformation, he’s seen the affect it’s had on Tom Holland’s character and how pure of heart he is, and I think he’s somebody who has seen the beauty of faith, and he’s also somebody who’s seen the absolute disparity and the violence and the destruction that has been done and committed in the name of religion. The Crusades, especially the crusade he was on, were unbelievably violent and bloody and depraved. He’s seen that first hand.
For me, this is a character who had made the decision that he would never fight again. He would never, in the name of religion, kill again. He was repenting. He was taking a vow of silence. But what happened was he forms this unbelievable relationship with this young boy, and that is something worth fighting for, that is something worth killing for, that is something worth dying for. It’s really the old soldier’s creed that at the end of the day, a soldier goes to war and he’s not fighting for country or God; he’s fighting for the guy next to him, and I saw real beauty in that message, and I saw real beauty in playing a character like that, and it’s something that I respond to.
I love the fact that it’s a character that has been so disciplined and poured so much into this lifestyle of saying “I’m going to kind of disappear and I’m just going to be of service and I’m never going to do any of the things that defined my earlier life, until you start messing with somebody I love.” And it’s not when you start affecting my religious beliefs or my political beliefs, but when you start violating the safety of people I love, now that’s something worldly. I think whether that relic is a real religious relic, or whether it’s just a rock, it doesn’t matter. It’s the people that are carrying that relic that are worth defending. I think that’s what attracted me so much to the character.
Capone: Jon, thank you so much for talking, and best of luck with this.
JB: Yeah, I hope we get to talk again. Thank you very much.
