Jon Bernthal’s 1999 detour to study acting in Russia: “It absolutely saved my life”

Actor Jon Bernthal, currently starring as Frank Castle/The Punisher in the record-breaking Spider-Man: Brand New Day and as Menelaus in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, has spoken about a formative detour early in his career when he travelled to Russia in 1999 to study at the Moscow Art Theatre School. As a self-described troublemaker in New York in the late 1990s, he took the advice of a school drama teacher and immersed himself in Russian acting traditions, later saying the experience "absolutely saved my life and changed my life".

The move proved pivotal: while in Moscow, Bernthal was spotted by a director from Harvard's Advanced Theatre training programme, who brought him back to the US to complete his training and launch a stage career. He went on to appear in Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre (2005) and rose to prominence as Shane Walsh in AMC's The Walking Dead from 2010, before roles in The Wolf of Wall Street, Fury, Baby Driver and The Punisher, which he has played since 2015 across Netflix and Disney productions. With The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day both major hits, plus recent stage and writing work on Dog Day Afternoon and The Bear spin-off Gary, 2026 is shaping up to be one of his biggest years yet.