16 Perfect Superhero TV Show Casting Choices That Nailed Their Characters

3. Jon Bernthal - The Punisher (Daredevil)

Punisher Daredevil
Netflix

As I've just said, Daredevil has a pretty talented cast. And by pretty talented I mean absolutely incredible. Just look at Jon Bernthal's rendition of Frank Castle for confirmation of that fact.

The Punisher has been portrayed onscreen so many times you'd think there'd be nothing left to do with the character at this point. That's not the case at all though, as even though we all may hold a soft spot for Thomas Jane's portrayal of Frank Castle's one man war on crime, it was far from perfect. I won't even address ol' Dolph Lundgren's performance either, since it really can't stack up to the monumental delivery of Bernthal's.

Frank Castle has always been an unhinged character. He was a vigilante that you could only sympathise with in so far as he didn't do something totally reprehensible, but that always translated to an almost emotionless performance on screen. That style represents the very antithesis of the character, as even though Punisher is certainly uncompromising in his ideological stances, he's not one to hide emotion. Rather, his tragic backstory begets a cold exterior; one Bernthal could convey just through his presence alone.

You really can tell that the MCU's Frank Castle has lost everything. You get this sense not just from the senseless brutality of the Punisher's actions, but again, from Bernthal's idiosyncratic dialogue and visual oddities. It's a performance you have to watch for yourself in all its entirety, and as we're set to get more Castle in a Netflix show of his own, the same nuance and quality is bound to follow.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.