Fresh Air - Actor Jon Bernthal on grit, dedication & the teacher who saved him

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Bernthal often plays intense, violent, damaged characters, like Mikey from ‘The Bear’ and Shane from ‘The Walking Dead.’ When talking about himself and his characters, Bernthal says that it’s easy for someone who’s scared to turn into someone who’s scary. He currently stars in ‘The Odyssey’ and the new Spider-Man film, ‘A Brand New Day.’ He spoke with Tonya Mosley about how he went from being an angry young man to a disciplined, dedicated artist. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air ArchivesSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today, John Bernthal, has spent two decades playing the kind of men you'd want to avoid. And somehow he makes you root for them anyway. This summer, he's in two major films, reprising his role as The Punisher in the upcoming Spider-Man movie and starring in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. His breakout role in 2010 was a Shane on the Walking Dead, a sheriff's deputy protecting a band of survivors from zombies, until he becomes the greater threat. He won an Emmy as Mikey, the brother whose ghost haunts every episode of the bear, and this year he starred in the Netflix hit series His and Hers and appeared on Broadway and Dog Day Afternoon. Bernthaw says he couldn't have predicted any of this. He grew up in Washington, D.C., a baseball player,

better known for fighting than acting, and by his own telling, he was a kid headed in the wrong direction. An acting teacher saw something in him, him and sent him of all places to one of the world's toughest classical theater conservatories in Russia. He returned transformed, co-founded a theater company, performed in dozens of stage productions, and spent years grinding through sitcom guest spots and small film roles before his break finally came. In The Odyssey, Bernthal makes his Christopher Nolan film debut, playing Minnaleas,

king of Sparta. A few weeks into production, in the Moroccan desert, The cast shot the Trojan horse sequence, one of the film's most iconic scenes. Matt Damon's character and more than a dozen warriors cram inside the belly of the horse, waiting to invade Troy. The horse sits partially submerged, and Bernthaw draws the short straw, neck deep, treading and freezing water that was supposed to be heated. And word has it, as Bernthaw stood there shivering, Nolan offered to pull him out, but he refused. John Bernthal, welcome to fresh air. Thank you so much for having me.

It's a real honor. Why did you refuse to get out of that cold freezing water? Oh, boy, I don't feel like I drew the short straw at all. I think any time, you know, that you really care about something or you believe in something, if you have the opportunity to sort of be the one to say, send me first, let me show you what I can do. I feel like our grit and our dedication is the one thing that we have control of in this world. I love doing this. I love that I got to work for Chris and with Chris.

And if he wanted to send somebody, I wanted to be that first one, for sure. I think that's, you know, I would jump at that again. It's interesting, Matt Damon said, you pushing through that uncomfortable moment, I mean, like, really, because it was the hardest role he said he's ever played just physically. And so to see you sit in that uncomfortable situation actually pushed him to. push through his discomfort. Tell us a little bit about that character and the significance of you being submerged in that water for all of that time. Look, you know, so kind of Matt to say that, but like I said, I really wouldn't have had it any other way. You know, when you look at that film and the experience for the folks that made it, I remember my first day arriving there, just seeing

the look in his eyes. He's a guy I know he's a guy that I respect deeply. Yeah, for sure. And just, you know, the first words he said to me when I saw him on this beach with thousands of extras in Morocco right after traveling across the world. He just said, John, I've never seen anything like this before. I said, me too, man. But if you haven't seen it, well, no one has. And I thought that on this film specifically, you know, there was a group of men that were Odysseus's men that were in this journey throughout the whole piece. And a lot of them, you know, were in the background. A lot of them didn't take their helmets off for the majority of the picture.

But I feel that that group of people really was the backbone of the film performance-wise. They add so much. They bring so much. And every day they are grinding and grinding and grinding. And what I was so grateful for is that I really got to be a part of that group for the first month and a half. And I've been in that group in a few other films. I know what that's like. And a lot of times you're sort of in that group or you're not in that group.

And if you come in sort of like I did where you have a few scenes, you're usually not a part of that. group. But I was so inspired by them. And to be sort of a soldier of the story and to be a grunt of the story is such an honor. Well, you have had quite a busy few years. And the other film that's coming out this summer is Spider-Man. I have yet to see it. I'm going to see it tonight. So it's crazy that I have, wait, you said you too. Yeah, yeah. I'm seeing it tonight too. Yeah. So you haven't seen it fully yet. Okay, so you've played Frank Castle for 10 years. And you've been pretty protective of this particular role. Like you take up for him and all of his shortcomings as well. And you're bringing him to this Spider-Man movie, rated for kids. What did you, or did you

negotiate or refuse to let them soften when it comes to the Punisher, in particular for this movie? Yeah, look, I think historically this is a character, you know, for the folks that don't know, So, you know, it's a character whose family was killed in sort of a shootout between a bunch of different criminal figures from the underworld that and his family and children were taken from him right when he got back from fighting overseas. He's a Forcer Recon Marine, and in our version, a Marine Raider. And it brings up so many issues. But I think beyond just sort of the spiraling, reeling, loss of his family and how he's

reacting to that, we've really sort of delved into issues of PTSD and traumatic brain injury and the feeling with so many vets who come home, guys who are tip of the spear vets who really feel lost and wayward and don't know what to do next. And, you know, look, I think I've said before, I was quite trepidacious and hesitant about sort of getting into the superhero world. It wasn't something that I was looking to do. It wasn't something that I sought out. How come? You know, I, I, I, For a few reasons, I think, you know, the guys, the folks that I've respected the most in acting some of my heroes, not that I respect the most, but a lot of my heroes sort of never went that way. And I think times have definitely changed, but, you know, to have superpowers or to fly through the air, I just, that just never, I think the characters that I'm really interested in are enormously grounded are, I try to,

make them and I try to find things about them that I can deeply relate to or they take me down a path that scares me intensely and so I have to go sort of explore that path and with the punisher in particular yeah look I've said before there's there's no way that I could begin to take on that character if I if I wasn't a husband and a father first first and foremost and and to fully and palpably understand you know what the feeling of of loving people on this earth and and happily give my life for these people on this earth, how would it feel that these people were taken from me? So I always want Frank to live there,

and he's not a character looking for the light. He's not a character looking for things to get easier or for things to get better. Yet he's a human being, and I think all the time with my, you know, the roles that I play, I love opportunities to turn my back on the audience, and I love to sort of take it too far to try to push myself to a place

or push the audience to a place where they can no longer be with this character, but then try to win them back through showing the fragility of their heart, showing how brokenhearted they are, showing how much pain they have, because I do think pain is a real adhesive, and I think it's the thing that really connects all of us. So fascinating, John, because it's true that pain is the thing,

but most human beings don't want to face that. We kind of live our lives avoiding it, and then dealing it with it when we have to. to. But you in particular seem to run towards it in every way, both physically and mentally. And your toughness has a history. You grew up in Washington, D.C. One of three brothers, you went to Sidwell Friends, the Quaker School, where presidents have sent their children. It's kind of a place known for nonviolence and peace, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And by your own telling, here you were in this school in fights and always chasing the most dangerous thing in the room, it seems. What did that look like?

Yeah, I think never fighting in school ever, you know, and I really think that sort of the values of that school, you know, were really ingrained in me, even if it took me years and years for them to sort of come out and really come to fruition and to really understand and believe in them. But there's no question that, you know, when I was a young, scared, confused man, that I did. I would run towards the most wild, the most dangerous, the craziest situations. What do you think it was that you were attracted to about it? I think for so many young men, it's about fear. It's about fear and it's about shame.

There's a wonderful book that has meant so much to me. And I really suggest everybody who read it, but especially, I think, young men, there's a book named Towney by Andre Dubu the third. It's incredible memoir, but it, but it sort of, it really sort of tells the story about how fear and shame, you know, can kind of lead to violence and, and how we sometimes become the very thing that we're scared of. And I do have a real relationship, I think, with, with danger, that I, that I have been in some situations that, you know, could have gone many ways. And, uh, I think to a certain point, I think that that's really important. Um, I also am so grateful that I'm so far past that now and so far beyond that now, and that mostly that I found

this work that all of the reckless abandon and sort of wild things that I got into as a young man, I can bring that same energy into my work. And hopefully, I can bring these kinds of folks. I can bring a real humanity to these kinds of folks and through that same sort of reckless abandonment and wildness. And I think that that is, that's my favorite. favorite way of working. So you're a young man and you are in this school where you're learning all these wonderful things about conflict resolution. I heard you talk about there's this Quaker ritual where you all would sit in silence and then when you had something that you needed to say, you could say it. Can you describe that? Sure. I mean, it's, you know, the way that Quakers worship

is so beautiful and, you know, there's no hierarchy in that religion. There's no priests. There's no rabbis. there's no ministers. There's just this fundamental belief that there's that of God and everyone. And that's something again that at the time, you know, I looked at those meeting for worships as just a time to either sleep or look at girls or, you know, try to not laugh. Because you all sit in a room and it just be quiet. Everybody is silence. You know, every coach, every security guard, everybody from buildings and grounds, every teacher, every administrator, every student, you would just sit in silence together. And the idea is if that of God moves you, you get up.

and you address the congregation, whatever comes from your heart. And I fundamentally believe in that. Did you ever do that? I did. I did. I only did it once. I only did it once. And it was actually strangely after I had gotten into an altercation outside of school. And I talked about, I've never spoke about this before, but there was a man who came after my little brother on a basketball court in D.C. and I ended up getting into an altercation with this man.

And I spoke about it because I was so scared. But I ended up having this just unbelievably profound sense of sorrow for this man. And I really empathized with this man. And I really saw a lot of myself in this man at that time. That was the only time I spoke. And it was a profound experience because I didn't plan to speak. I didn't go in saying today is my day to speak in meeting for worship. It really did just hit me.

me in the moment, which was strange for that point in my life. Your father was a corporate lawyer. And is that right? He became that, yeah, at first, yeah. Your grandfather, a musician and a producer. And your mom and brothers are also powerhouses. I mean, you come from a really impressive family. It sounds like discipline and accomplishment were a big part of the foundation of you guys.

And how would they describe your place in the family? Oh, boy. I was definitely the black sheep. You know, I was definitely the one who got in trouble. I was definitely the one who... You're the middle boy? I was the middle boy. You know, both of my brothers are enormously sort of quote unquote successful. So my eldest brother, you know, right out of college, got into the news. He was a producer. I think he won four Emmys by the time he was 22. He was the youngest producer on TV. And then he started this. small firm, which it was enormously successful. And then my little brother, who just kind of was always that way, he was an all-American football player and played basketball at Princeton and, you know, went to medical school. My wife is a ICU trauma nurse.

I was living with my wife and my little brother when he was in medical school and I was a starting struggling actor, just taking odd jobs to get by. But, you know, my brother now is, you know, he's the head of oncology and orthopedics here at UCLA. How proud your parents must be of you guys. Yeah, but again, I got to tell you, my dad grew up in a, you know, split family home. You know, my parents didn't come from much. There was never a huge onus in my house for achievement or they weren't, you know, pushing us. You know, we lived in D.C. We had an open door policy. You know, my house was the house that, you know, if you were in trouble, you came to talk to my dad. If you needed a bed, you came to

my mom, you know, they were foster parents. They took in foster kids. The alchemy of how they did it was so extraordinary. And I have to tell you, without a doubt, I am the failure of the family. I've done the least by far. And what they are most proud of is how close we are. And, you know, my parents really put up with a lot with me. They really did. What do you think it was that had you driving towards that danger for you as a young person? Because I do think it plays into the way you're able to give such a real performance of these conflicted and violent people that you often portray? I don't know. I mean, honestly, it's a good question. You know, as a young man, I know I saw my older brother get picked on a good bit. And I know that I sort of made a choice that that was never going to happen to me.

And I know that I was really sort of fell into sort of a natural protector role for my little brother. and then I think it just kind of got carried away. And I think that, again, you know, I think never underestimate the power of fear and shame, you know. And I think you can go from somebody who's very scared into somebody who is very scary. And I think that that is just the sort of the natural progression of things, unfortunately, so much of the time. and then I think it's you also then have a potential to go to the next place which is you know you can start using that you can come to a place where you're comfortable and you're confident and you're open to all kinds of thoughts and there's there's you're not led by fear you're not led by shame you're really you become curious um and I do genuinely believe that's where I am now I'm really hungry and open and curious and um I don't I really try not to judge folks, and I really do see that, you know, I've found wisdom and grace and beauty in folks that a lot of people would label as some of the scariest people out there. Acting finds you, though, in a very interesting way, almost by accident.

So you're this, this Hillian in Washington, D.C., as you put it. You go to Skidmore College to play baseball. you walk into an intro acting class as a freshman thinking that you can kind of sleep through it. And the first assignment is for you to bring something you care about and talk about it in this acting class. And you forgot. So you grab your catcher's glove and you spin this story that your mother had given it to you on her deathbed, but she's alive and well. And do you remember how you felt after you gave this monologue and you looked around the room and you saw. other responses of everybody. I was blown away.

It was an out-of-body experience. I had told this story, and I knew that it took that leap to sort of jump into something. It never dawned to me that it even mattered whether it was true or not. In that room, I knew my back was against the wall. I know I hadn't brought anything. I knew it was an enormously emotive room and a level of sort of openness with these young artists, these serious young theater artists that I was completely unfamiliar. with and I knew that I had to jump. And it was no different, honestly, than jumping into

a street fight or jumping into a football game or jumping into a situation that, okay, there's only one thing to do here. If you're sparring and boxing, okay, let's go. You just take that step and you go. And I have from a young age been quite addicted to that step. And I knew that that step was necessary there, even though I had no idea what I was doing. And I always come back to this word, reckless abandonment. You stop thinking. You get out of your own head and you just go forward

and you try to connect with something bigger. And, you know, I do remember kind of coming back to myself with tears down my eyes, you know, with the story that I completely made up. But then also, you know,

noticing while I was telling the story, the sort of grip, the real palpable grip that I had over the other folks in the room and I saw the emotion from them. And I knew that it was something special and I knew that it was something very powerful. Your teacher, though.

Yeah. She saw the talent in you, but she called Bull. She knew that this was, Omma Becker is her name. Alma Becker, yeah, her name's right here on my wrist. You have a tattoo. I do. It's of the Moscow Art Theater and Alma's name. And, yeah, she saved my life, you know.

I mean, she was as, you know, what I found that day with her was a level of vitality. and a level of, you know, I always sort of thought of the arts in my own sort of naive way, that it was a soft place. It was a place of just complete acceptance and not one of rigor and discipline and real vitality. And boy, did she, boy, did she give it to me and sort of ripped me apart. She saw something in you. She did. She said, yeah, her punishment was that I had to audition for the play for the college, you know, production. Our guest today is actor John Bernthal.

We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is actor John Bernthal. He returns as the Punisher in the new Spider-Man film Brand New Day. He also stars in Christopher Nolan's epic The Odyssey. He's also the host of the podcast, Real Ones. where he sits down with the kinds of people

he spent his career playing. Police officers, veterans, former gang members, when we left off, we were talking about how he discovered and fell in love with acting in college. So you did that, and you did that for a while. You started to really get into it. You started to really feel it.

And your teacher. Her answer to you, as she saw your talent blossom, was that you needed to go to Russia, to the Moscow Art Theater School, one of the most demanding classical conservatories in the world. It is 1999. You don't speak a lick of oppression.

And you go. Why Russia of all places? I think just like what you were talking about with, you know, Mr. Nolan in the beginning, I would have done anything Alma told me to do. I wanted this. It didn't take long. I auditioned for that play. And I remember telling my best friend Greg Zumis that summer,

I remember sitting down with him when we had, you know, we were delivering pizzas at the beach. And I remember telling him, man, this is what I have to do. This is what I'm going to do. Like, there's no question. And I think, number one, you know, this sort of private school kid from D.C. who thought he was all big and bad, you know, getting out and really seeing the world and seeing Moscow, I think would be enormously humbling and just be a reality check that I needed. I think she also knew that I needed to kind of get away from all the people that I was with and that it was, you know,

a group of young men that sort of crave danger is much different than one man on his own. But mostly, you know, Russia is and was a place with such a rich theatrical history where being an actor is such a serious profession. You can't do it without real rigorous training. There's statues of actors, you know, in the city. It's much more akin to being a soldier. And it's that way because it's not. taken for granted there. Absolutely. Because it's been, it's policed. It's been censored.

Of course. I mean, actors have been assassinated. Directors have been assassinated in their homes. The opportunity to get a group of people to gather publicly and to put on a show was something that for so long was controlled by the state, was controlled by the state for all of my teachers. So, you know, for them, you know, this was not a hobby. This was not something that you just got to do. It was such a privilege. It was such an honor, an honor that's that, that, that, that, that, They performed in plays where had they been caught, they risked imprisonment. They risked assassination. Putting on theatrical productions that Warren State sponsored was absolutely risking their life.

And they did it anyway, all of them. It changed everything for me. It's really interesting that she saw in you that a place like Russia, because when we think about Russia, I mean, conditions are tough. It is rough. You went to Russia and you're like, wait, I thought I was a tough guy. Yeah. The brutality there was unlike anything I had ever seen, but so was the beauty and there were equal parts. Look, I don't want to overdo the brutality. I mean, you know, I had guns, multiple guns pulled on me, you know, within my first week there. You know, I had, I saw, you know, people that were left dead in the street. I saw a level of desperation, of wildness, of unbelievable disparity between those that have and those that do not. You know, people called it the Wow, Wow West. But, I mean, it was run by criminals.

I mean, that's just what was going on there then. And you were yet going to school every day, going to class every day. Yeah, you know, living in this tiny little place with four other people I slept on the floor, we turned the lights on. You know, the cockroaches would go everywhere. You'd feel them climbing over you all at night. The buildings had curfews, so you, you know, you could only get in and out at certain times. And then if you needed to get out, you'd get out. You'd throw the fire hose down and you'd repel down out of the windows.

I mean, it was a wild place and a wild time, but the most alive, the most impactful time of my life, without a doubt. If you're just joining us, my guest today is actor John Bernthal. He stars in the new Christopher Nolan Epic, The Odyssey, in theaters now. And he reprises the role as Frank Castle, the Punisher, and the new Spider-Man film in theaters this week. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is fresh air. This is fresh air, and today I am talking with actor John Bernthal. He returns as The Punisher in the new Spider-Man film and stars in Christopher Nolan's epic The Odyssey.

His breakout role was as Shane in The Walking Dead, and he won an Emmy for his role as Mikey in the Bear. 2010 finally comes. You're in Los Angeles. The Walking Dead, playing Shane, a sheriff deputy, trying to hold a group of survivors together at the end of the world. And this role is considered your breakout role. But you've been open that a year before, almost to the day, your life had nearly ended because of a conflict that it happened in Venice. Yeah, what happened? Yeah, I mean, I've spoken about it before.

You know, I think that that was sort of the tail end of all of the walls that I had walked into. There are so many times that, you know, I should have learned. my lesson. And I think for a while there, I believe that kind of my, my wildness, I think I suffered from something that a lot of young artists suffer from where I thought that's sort of my wildness and that reckless abandon that I talked to you about before, that I thought that I needed to hang on to that in order now to be a good artist, that the two things came hand in hand. Like it your edge? Like it was your edge? A little bit. And I knew that I was capable. I'd been of places that a lot of actors hadn't been.

I'd been in situations that a lot of them had been, and I'd been capable of things that a lot of them weren't capable of. And I felt that that was something that I kind of needed. And yes, in July 3rd, 2009, I was in a situation where, you know, I was confronted by a group of men. You know, one of them, you know, came out my dog,

and they started to follow me, and I fought them. And, you know, one of them got enormously hurt, seriously hurt and we weren't sure whether he was going to wake up and uh that led to one of the most profound moments of my life where you know i was at the l a county jail you know handcuffed to a bench not knowing which way this was going to go um and you know i've spoken about it before but uh you know i was i was in a place where i was quite aware that we were now being led to a place where all of these things that all of these gifts that I had been given, all of this protection that I had because of my father, all of this unbelievable opportunity of being in trouble. This wasn't the first time.

I've been in trouble a lot. And I'd gotten to go to Russia. I'd gotten to be in movies at this point, be on TV shows. And here I was handcuffed to a damn bench, not knowing if this guy was going to wake up. And, uh, and made a promise to yourself. I did. I think what happened there, you know, honestly was I knew and it wasn't it wasn't a shameful thought and it wasn't a scary thought. I just knew that that this man wasn't going to wake up and that this was going to be my life. I mean, I don't want to say it this way, but it's just the truth. So I will. I heard a voice and the voice said, look, this is going to be your life now.

And so it's time to let all that other stuff go. It's time to go in there. And I knew enough about what it would mean to have a serious charge in L.A. and what that would mean for my life going forward. And I understood it. And I wasn't scared of it. I accepted it. And I even welcomed it.

And I said, okay, well, that's that dense. It's time to say goodbye. But then this other voice came. And it just said, oh, man, it pled. And it just said, if you just give me this shot, if you just one more time, even though my butt has been saved so many times, I am not a kid who didn't come from opportunities. I did. And I never learned this damn lesson.

But oh, man, if you just, if you can. just get me out of this one. And it's palpable. How many folks don't get that? And, you know, right at that moment, an officer came in and said that he had woken up. And I said that if that happens, I'm done. I'm going to devote myself to this work. I'm going to get married.

I'm going to have a family. I'm going to devote myself to service. I'm going to be the best version of myself that I possibly can be. And look, that situation surely didn't end right then. There were still consequences. There was still. But he survived. And like that, that means that's significant, I mean, beyond what's obvious for him and for you. For sure. And look, as you were alluding to, one year later, engaged to my wife, free from alcohol, on the set of this TV show that I just knew. I just knew I had to do. I had to do it.

I was there with my friend Sarah Wayne Callies on July 3rd, just beginning this process. The next year. The next year. And I went home and I wrote that guy a letter. And I knew that what I saw in that man that night was I saw myself. I knew that this sort of vile, rambunctious, aggressive, bad man, a child was something that I had seen in myself. And I knew that that had to, I had to be done with that. And I have been done with it.

And the thing that is not lost in me, and I think really does pertain to so many of the roles that I play is, as I'm sure you know, so many people are in that exact same situation that I'm in and they don't get saved. And it doesn't turn out well. And that's why I fundamentally believe that that hope and love and yearning and the things that make us human are prevalent in everyone, even in the most violent, even in the most secluded. even in the most desperate. And so I always try to find those things in the people that I play. This role in The Walking Dead, it's one year later,

July 3rd, 2010, you're walking on the set in Atlanta, a year sober, as you said, and this character, Shane, he's a sheriff's deputy trying to hold a group of survivors together. And I actually want to play a clip. So this is a scene from season

two, episode six, Secrets, and Dale, played by Jeffrey Daman, who is often seen as the voice of reason among the group, kind of senses your character. Shane is trouble because of his aggressive attitude and short fuse, and he also believes you might have killed the body. So, and he urges your character to leave the group, and your character Shane pushes back and threatens him. Let's listen. You've been vague about that night about what happened. Oh, just out of hero. So you've said.

A little boy lived because of what went down that night. I think you ought to show some gratitude. I wasn't there. No, man, you weren't. But I was the time that you raised your gun on Rick. You had him in your sights and you held him there. I know what kind of man you are. You think I'd shoot, Rick.

That is my best friend. That's a man that I love. I love him like he's my brother. You think that's the kind of man I am? That's right. Well, maybe we ought to just think that through. Actually, I'm the kind of man gunned down his own best friend. What do you think I do to some guy that I don't even like when he starts throwing accusations my way?

What you think? Oh, that was my guest today, John Bernthallen, in the walking dead. And it's all in the eyes between the two of you in that scene. You know, this is a chilling piece of acting. and knowing what you were going through in your own life and this promise that you made to yourself, in a way it's like you're channeling, you're channeling that kind of rage and anger into this character.

What is it like to visit a character like this, the thing you promised to kind of leave behind in your own life? Such a blessing. It's a blessing. It's profound, you know, the thing that I thought I needed to cling to in order to be the guy that I was, in order to have the relationships that I had,

in order to sort of keep my reputation among my friends or to deal with my shame when I was around quite, all these sort of toxic things that I think plague so many young men. Here I found this thing that I could tap into those same exact things, take them enormously seriously, and find the truth in them. I know the truth in that stuff. And here I was, I could use it, you know,

one level to have a job, but two, and much more importantly, to hopefully reach folks. And I think to tap into things that I feel is the thing that I love most about art is when you tap into a color or to a sound or to an emotion that we know that we felt, that we know that we've seen, we know as part of the experience, but we can't really label it and say, oh, yeah, I felt that. I know that. I know that guy. I've seen that kind of pain. and that was the blessing of my career without a doubt. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor John Bernthal.

We'll be right back after a break. This is fresh air. This is fresh air. And today, my guest is Emmy-winning actor John Bernthal. He's in two major films this summer, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, where he plays Menelaus, King of Sparta, and the new Spider-Man film,

reprising his role as Frank Castle, the Punisher. the character he first made famous in the Netflix series. His breakout role was as Shane in The Walking Dead, and he won an Emmy for playing Mikey in The Bear. He just ended his run on Broadway, starring alongside his longtime friend Eben Moss Backrack in the play Dog Day Afternoon. So Evan is the one that pulled you into the bear, right?

So the way you've told it, there is no script, no pitch, just Eben saying, hey man, do me a favor. You need to come on this. Like, you need to do this. And so you took it blind. and that favor became Mikey, which you won an Emmy for. Congratulations. Thank you. The storyline is that he took his own life,

and everything in the show, the restaurant, all of it, is kind of centered around the crater that is left with your absence. And you appear only in flashbacks and memories. Was there a particular thought about the way that you took on this role, knowing that you would kind of be like this figure that's not there, but is there at the same time? For me, I don't think you can go about it that way. I remember David Simon telling me that, you know,

the second that he would tell a character on the wire that they were dying, they would start eating a ritz cracker like it was the last time they'd ever eat a ritz cracker. You can't, I heard these things about, you know, we need, we need them to be larger than life, and we need him to, you know, be this huge, you know, huge, you know, you can't go in and play a role. This guy's got to hang over all that. You know, where you see him in the first season is so unbelievably different from where you see him in the second season. They allowed him to get ugly. They allowed to see the other side.

In the first season, you see this smile and this warmth and this ability to tell a story and how much everybody, you know, when we lose people, the rose-colored lens, the glorification. I mean, you know, it's a part of it. And I love sort of that color. You and Evan, as you said, you wrote this episode together of the bear called Gary. And in this prequel, so Mikey is alive, it's before everything. It's on a road trip from Chicago to Gary, Indiana, and you're with Richie, who is Ebyn's character, and on an unspecified mission. And during that trip, Mikey meets a woman named Sherry, played by Marin Ireland at a Gary Indiana bar, and they go into a bathroom stall together, kind of have a little drugs. And they share an intimate moment about how kind Mikey's mother was when she was high.

And what's so powerful about this is that we know Mikey had issues, but they were never really laid out. And here he is talking to a stranger, and we're seeing him his most open, intimate self with a stranger in a bathroom stall. And it's a little low, but we're going to listen to it. It's Mikey talking to Sherry telling him about this memory. Let's listen. When I was a kid, you know, my mom, she used to do this thing where, like, when she was, like, on, like, the perfect mixture of, like, all kinds of things in her system, you know. It's just, like, perfect.

She, like, come to my room in the middle of the night, you know, and she, like, scratched my bag. And she had, like, the longest nails. And she just, you know, and she used to walk me through my day, you know? Like, the most minute details, you know, like, well, we're going to eat and we're going to wake out, what I was going to wear, what was going to be on the radio, like, every thing, you know, and just, like, it would make me feel like, I don't know, like, it would just make me feel so relaxed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, no matter what was going to happen that day, it didn't matter, like, test or some shit I had to deal with. Like, I knew that, and she had planned it for me. It was great, and I remember there was just one time. I was like, hey, ma, hey, ma, will you come in and tell me about my day tomorrow? And she was like, she got angry, you know?

She was like, Mike, you, difference doesn't make. It's just a day. Like, I just didn't understand how that could be, like, like how that could be the same person, you know? That's so scary. She shouldn't have done that.

She tried her best, man. You see there at the end, she tried her best. That was my guest, John Bernthal. He wrote that with Eben Moss, back rack it's a prequel episode of the bear and um oh what a powerful scene you know yeah it's it's there's there's so much in that first of all i just think that the show too it's it's such a deep dive into mental health and and the fragility of of people and and um you know look my i had a dear friend of mine um who who lost his father and and and he was

used to talk to me about how at certain times at like 3.30 in the morning, his dad would be on like the perfect combination of alcohol and drugs. And he would come into the room and he would just have this sort of level of peace that so he would just sort of set his alarm. So he would like kind of always be able to talk to his dad in that state. And my mom used to come in to my room every night, some nights, and scratch my back and tell me about my day. And I, and I love the fact that Sometimes in life we can only really talk about ourselves. We can really only explain what's really going on with ourselves with complete strangers. You know, in that scene, I think sort of the thing that's going on in Mikey more than anything else is that he knows that within the same person.

But he knows he's got exactly what his mom's got and he knows that it's a hereditary thing and that it's real. And he knows that what makes him so special and so attractive and so irresistible just, you know, can also make him so repulsive and so dark and so impossible. to be around. I love that in the opportunity of this show, we got to have this sort of reprieve where, you know, he got to sort of talk about what was exactly about to happen when he unravels with Eben. And I think as much as the episode is funny, and it's a slice in time, and it's a sort of road trip, and it's a la Casavetes. And, you know, I'm so proud of the piece. One of my favorite roles of yours is a really small one. but it's a very powerful one.

And it's your most gentle. And it's you in Ava DuVernay's film, Origin. It's about writer Isabel Wilkerson and how she came to write her book cast. And you play her husband, Brett, who he is warm, he is devoted, and he's strong, and his death is one of the losses that sends Isabel's character into grief

and where the book cast gets written. And I read that you actually fought for this role. Yeah, tell me about it. about that. After reading Cast? Yeah. I mean, look, I beg everybody to read that book. How did you even get introduced to the book? You know, before I went to Russia, I never read. I never read. And I remember we got, there's a thing called Black Tuesday where they basically cut half the class and everybody has to

go in front of all your teachers and you sort of, they analyze you. And for me, it was doubly hard because they would analyze me in Russian and then I'd have to wait for the translation. and you sort of are known whether you get kicked out or not. And so some people walk out in tears, some people walk out in joy. And I remember my acting teachers. And again, I'm hearing this through translation. But they said, you know, John, your talent, I remember this so perfectly, your talent's like a gem. It's like a wild gem.

But they said it's completely unformed. You have no elegance. They said, we bet you don't read. And I'm like, never read a book of my life. You know, like never done it. You know, and they said from this point on, never let there be a moment. If you want to be an actor, if you want to be an artist, never let there be a moment where you're not reading. I really took that to heart, and I just dove in.

So, you know, Ava, I was so blown away by Ava. I'm such a big fan of hers. You know, Angenu Ellis, I just think Angenu is just a force of nature. She is the greatest we have right now. And also, I felt like to be in a movie where your role is really to be in service. Like you're to be in certain, you know, that's really the kind of husband, Brett, was. It was aspirational. Here was this unbelievable woman with this unbelievable mind who could think in a way that no one else could.

And he really understood that his role was to serve her. And so I don't know, it was something, especially because so much of the time I'm sort of asked to represent these certain kind of like brands of masculinity. I think that character is every bit as as masculine as the Punisher or, you know, the guy played in shot caller. You know, it's just... That's so powerful about it. I mean, right. He's strong. It's sturdy.

It's thoughtful. It's caring. He's a protector. He's a provider. But it has nothing to do with bombaster bluster. And again, through the lens of, you know, raising young men that I believe in the ability to defend yourself. I believe in part of being a man is to be a provider, to be a protector, but it's also equally important to be kind and curious and sensitive and open and to be of service.

Well, John Bernthal, I really thank you for your work and I thank you for this conversation. I appreciate you having me. I really do. Emmy-winning actor John Bernthal currently appearing in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. His film's Spider-Man Brand New Day opens in theaters tomorrow. If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with classicist Emily Wilson, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of Fresh Air interviews. You can also watch some of our interviews on our YouTube page, This is Fresh Air. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations on what to watch, read, and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at W.HY. www.org slash fresh air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanishefsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorock, Anne-Marie Baldinado, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yacundi, Anna Bauman, Nico Gonzalez Whistler, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Thea Challoner directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.