Jon Bernthal Loved That His Walking Dead Character Was Doomed

The Punisher actor looks back at Shane’s unavoidable fate.

By Ed Douglas

It’s been five years since actor Jon Bernthal walked away from the AMC show The Walking Dead, or rather since his character Shane Walsh met an untimely fate in the penultimate episode of Season 2.

Since then, Bernthal has remained fairly active, appearing in last year’s The Accountant opposite Ben Affleck and on the 2013 TV series Mob City, and he had two movies at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival: the 13th Century religious epic Pilgrimage and the crime-drama Sweet Virginia.

Now, however, Bernthal probably is more recognizable for playing Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, on Netflix’s Daredevil show. While Bernthal wouldn’t say a peep about what to expect from his upcoming solo series for The Punisher when we spoke to him at Tribeca, we did ask him to reflect back on The Walking Dead and whether he knew that his character wasn’t going to last very long on that hit show. In the original comics, Shane was killed in the second issue, but the television show did a lot more with Shane’s relationship with Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes. We asked how he found out that Shane was going to be a goner, and the actor explained that he knew from day one.

“I knew going in,” he told us. “During the audition process, all the men they were looking at had to audition for both Rick and Shane, and I was very clear with [then showrunner] Frank [Darabont] that I wanted to audition for Shane. That’s what I wanted, and he said, ‘You know he’s not going to last...” and I said, ‘That’s the character. The guy had a built-in beginning, middle and end,’ and often times you don’t get that as a character. I sort of prefer that. I loved knowing that he was going to die. I loved knowing that he was going to lose his mind. I loved being able to star in it, from the absolute opposite end of the spectrum -- being the best friend possible and loving this man so much and knowing that I have to go to the place where he was going to go. I thought it was such a great opportunity and I’m super grateful to Frank Darabont for giving it to me.”

Trying to bring the conversation back to the Punisher, we noted that he could be playing that character for much longer than he did Shane, to which he retorted, “Yeah, until people can’t stand it anymore.”

So we reminded him that there have been other actors that played Frank Castle -- three to be exact -- and the fans seem to like his version enough to want to see more. “I hope so. I really hope people like it,” he responded.

Look for more on IGN with Bernthal about his two Tribeca films soon. And of course The Punisher is set to debut on Netflix later this year.

Talk to Ed Douglas at @EDouglasWW.

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