I definitely felt the grit of New York City. You’re from the Bronx, so you understand all that. I also felt some Sidney Lumet in there.
Yeah, yeah. I got some Sidney Lumet in there for sure. It’s hard to think of New York City without Sidney, and he’s one of the GOATs, for sure. Certainly, in the film lineage, he’s there in the DNA of what this project is.
Our combination together, our friendship, our collaboration, I think that’s at the heart of this. For me, it was dissecting the character. Who is he? Who does he want to be? Where is he going? And then trying to find the filmic language to help us get there.
If someone jumped into this special at the two-minute mark, they might not even know it was Marvel. They might think it was a gritty crime thing. Was there any pushback on how hard-R and brutal it gets?
I think John wasn’t going to have it any other way. He had held on to the idea of doing it for years. Through many conversations that he had, even before me, he needed to go hard. It was go hard or go home. I think that was really the condition before he signed on to doing it, because he felt there was no other reason for the special to exist unless he could go there.
Once he had that okay from Marvel, which was great, and Disney, to get that permission and say, “Hey, this is going to be the darkest thing that they’ve seen. Is that a journey they’re willing to go on?” They certainly were. That was amazing. I felt like I had their full support, and certainly John’s, as co-writer and the person championing this idea from soup to nuts.
John is a producer on this. He’s an actor. He’s a writer. He’s heavily involved in the creation and the storytelling. That was so important for me to have that kind of big brother in the trenches with me. I think that was vital to the journey and to the character’s success.
Was it always a special, or was it ever a movie or a series?
It always came to me as a special. I don’t know what iterations may have predated the conversations that I had with John, but when I signed on, it was always going to be special. It was always going to be a special for Disney+.
For me, I always knew the parameters of the world that we were living in. I knew it was going to be an hour, which was really great for me because it was my first time working in the Marvel universe. It was a great form to work in and say, “What is essential for telling a story in this hour? What can we strip out? What have we seen in the character before? How can we look at this from a slightly different vantage point? How can we take a known story and make our own unique spin on it?”
It was a really fun and interesting experiment for me. Hopefully, we’ll continue conversations to continue to work with Marvel. I loved the experience. I loved working with John. I loved working with Disney. It was an A-plus from start to finish.
Would you work with Marvel again? People sometimes think of Marvel as controlling, but filmmakers often say their experience was collaborative.
I come from a collaborative spirit. A good idea can come from anywhere, whether that’s the PA truck, literally the cooks. When I go to get lunch, the guys and girls have opinions, and I love it. You never know. They’re fans. These are filmmakers. The grip trucks are filmmakers. The ACs are filmmakers. Every department is full of people who love movies.
They’re fans of the character, and they’re so happy that this character is coming back. So you’ll get experts in very different departments, which is amazing for me as a filmmaker, to have access to real filmmakers who are saying, “Man, did you read that comic?” I didn’t, but let me go back and check it out.
It was great to hear it from so many different places and see how many people are protective of the Punisher because he’s such a lauded character in the Marvel universe. For me, not only having John as the character and co-creator of this, but having people who are just fans of the Punisher and wanted it to succeed, was huge.
Of course, it adds pressure, but I grew up playing baseball. I was the closer of my college baseball team. So for me, I like pressure. I like this idea that the game is on the line, and I’m the guy to hopefully strike out the side. I want the ball with two seconds left on the clock. I’m someone who likes that and is willing to take the chance and risk. It’s always been in my DNA.
Whether it succeeds, we can fall on that sword. We can say we tried versus not trying. It was fun to have access to people who cared about making something great. That was important to this journey.
How would you describe Frank’s emotional journey in the special? Where does he start, and where does he end?
This is the darkest place that Frank has ever been. Where he’s headed at the beginning of our special is to the other side. To see him go through that emotionally in the first half of our special is important.
That’s a hard place for a lot of people, especially people who have served in the military, people who have gone through war, people who have seen things that normal civilians don’t have the comprehension of. That was hard. Hearing their stories firsthand, we again had access to real military and ex-military for this piece. To hear their stories and hear the depths of that is really hard for anybody. It’s emotional.
What will wake Frank up in this special? I think that was the key. What is going to bring him back from the depths? And will he come back? That’s really the special. It’s really a question more than it is an answer.
I think filmmaking is every decision being a question and a moral complication. Is he going to do something right now when the city’s on fire? Is he going to protect his family or someone else’s family? Or is he going to fight and be a vigilante in that other regard? Those are the questions the special tries to ask, rather than impose answers.
Frank is up next in “Spider-Man,” but I’m assuming you don’t really know anything about that because Marvel compartmentalizes everything.
I have no information on that one.
What are you doing next? I saw “Southern Bastards” mentioned, and maybe there was a Lionsgate movie. What are you up to?
I just finished a pilot for Hulu, “Southern Bastards,” with Tim McGraw, Kevin Bacon, and Erin Kellyman. Fantastic little piece. It’s a genre piece based on Jason Aaron’s graphic novel. Really, really fun.
I’ve been in the genre for a little while, which is fun. I’m opening up some opportunities. The long play is to get back into Marvel. Obviously, if a live-action Miles Morales version of ‘Spider-Man: Spider-Verse’ comes along, I know of a half-Black, half-Puerto Rican Mets fan from New York who would be right for that [laughs]. So we’ll see.
I want to work on fun characters, meaningful work with great people. I’ve got a Tiger Woods biopic in the works, which would be really fun. Tiger’s obviously gone through a lot, but I think he’s one of the greatest ever to do it. A complicated individual, but certainly one I think I would really enjoy exploring the psychological aspects of.
There’s a lot on the horizon. What’s most important right now is this one and seeing what happens from here.
“The Punisher: One Last Kill” is now available on Disney+.
