Jon Bernthal
Biography
Jon Bernthal was born and raised in Washington D.C., the son of Joan (Marx) and Eric Bernthal, a lawyer. His grandfather was musician Murray Bernthal. Jon went to study at The Moscow Art Theatre School, in Moscow, Russia, where he also played professional baseball in the European professional baseball federation. While in Moscow, he was noticed by the director of Harvard University's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at the American Repertory Theatre and was invited to obtain his M.F.A there. After graduating in 2002 he has performed in over 30 plays regionally and off-Broadway including many with his own award-winning theatre company Fovea Floods. He now lives in Venice, California with his dog, Boss.
Family
Trivia
His parents are both from Ashkenazi Jewish families (Jon's maternal grandfather was born in Munich, Germany, and Jon's other ancestors emigrated from Austria, Russia, Poland, and Lithuania).
He is the first live action actor to portray Frank Castle/The Punisher who was born after the character was created, the year 1974.
He is the first American born-actor to portray Frank Castle/The Punisher in a live-action adaption in 12 years, since Thomas Jane.
One of Jon's two brothers is Tom Bernthal, a three-time Emmy Award-winning former producer for NBC and the founder and CEO of Kelton Global, a business consulting firm.
His nose has been broken a reported 13 times to date (2016).
Appears as Frank Castle in the TV series Daredevil (2015) plus starred with the original Daredevil (2003) movie star Ben Affleck in The Accountant (2016).
His favorite films are The Silence of the Lambs (1991), D.C. Cab (1983), A Prophet (2009), Goodfellas (1990) and True Romance (1993).
Bernthal cites the event in 2009 as the epiphany that made him change his life. In 2009 a drunk man grabbed his dog. Afterwards the man and some of his buddies started following him home. After Bernthal warned him off and they didn't listen, Bernthal punched him in the face and was taken in to the police station as a consequence. The injured man woke up, later and witnesses came forward to say that he had menaced Bernthal before the actor punched him.
Personal Quotes
I mean, I hate when actors talk about how hard their job is. It's ridiculous, because we have the best job in the world.
I don't tweet.
I did come to L.A. to try to get on TV and get in front of a camera, so I could have a stage career in New York.
Bugs have always loved me.
If you can figure out how to get paid to do something you love, that's the dream.
You know, I love the South.
Let's just say I'm a physical guy.
I've never been a big gore guy.
I'm not a big shopper.
I think it helps, as an actor, to never know when you're going to get that next script and you're done.
I played sports in high school and in college.
I played baseball in college, and then I went to Russia to study acting and played some pro ball over there.
