Since the 2015 Netflix series, it's hard to picture Charlie Cox's Daredevil without Jon Bernthal's Punisher. However, Bernthal recently shared why he initially declined to be part of the Disney+ revival, Daredevil: Born Again.
The actor, known for his role in The Wolf of Wall Street, explained that he was not fully on board with the initial creative direction for his character, Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher.
"Ultimately, I didn't see it. I didn't see the version of Frank, and what they wanted from Frank [didn't] really make sense to me," he told Entertainment Weekly. "I thought [it] would not appeal to the fans and wouldn't be congruent. It was not something I was really interested in doing. So we had to walk away."
Following a significant creative overhaul after the strikes, producer Dario Scardapane was appointed as the new showrunner for the series. It was at this point that Bernthal started to envision a role for Frank in *Born Again*."They really brought me into the conversation," Bernthal said of Scardapane, with whom he had previously collaborated on The Punisher series, and Marvel. "We really got specific about where Frank is psychologically, where Frank's at physically."
Warning! Spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again follow.
