Jon Bernthal Shared the Surprising Way He Dealt With Early Career Rejection
Today, no one can deny that Jon Bernthal knows how to give a dedicated performance. He’s best known as Shane Walsh in The Walking Dead, and for his lead role in Marvel’s short-lived, yet arguably underappreciated series The Punisher. But Bernthal has also starred in an overwhelming amount of popular films in the past few years, popping up in Ford v. Ferrari, King Richard, and The Many Saints of Newark, among others. Whether he’s playing a charismatic tennis coach, or an unnerving anti-hero, Bernthal knows how to make his time on screen memorable. But getting those notable roles was anything but easy.
Bernthal, who’s set to star in writer David Simon’s (The Wire) new series We Own This City, did a recent interview in The New York Times where he revealed casting directors didn’t always agree he had star power.
Recounting his rise to fame, the actor says rejection made him feel small. “When you look at the entertainment industry, it’s amazing how doors are slammed in your face,” Bernthal says. “I remember casting directors looking at my big nose and my giant ears and just being like, “What are you doing here?”
To deal with the constant barrage of criticism, Bernthal says his wife’s career made him think about his problems differently. He says he’d come home “with tears in my eyes of frustration,” but would hear about his wife’s challenging days as a I.C.U. trauma nurse and realized the rejection as an actor wasn’t as emotionally taxing.
“The things she was encountering—holding somebody’s hand as they were passing, or letting somebody know that they weren’t going to ever see a family member again—just put it all in such clear perspective for me,” says Bernthal.
The anecdote revealed the actor’s humility in the wake of his soon-to-be stardom, and perhaps even offered some advice for early-career actors struggling to grapple with an often harsh and critical industry.
In addition to his upcoming role in We Own This City, Bernthal is set to star in a TV adaptation of American Gigolo, and an upcoming Lena Dunham project called Sharp Stick.
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