‘The Premise’ Didn’t Cast Jon Bernthal Because of His ‘Punisher’ “Pro-Gun Fan-Base”

The Premise, FX’s new anthology series, didn’t cast actor Jon Bernthal in a gun control focused episode because of his background playing the title character in Netflix’s The Punisher. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a consideration.

“I cast him because he is such a good actor, plain and simple,” show creator BJ Novak told Decider during the show’s recent Television Critics Association Panel (TCA).  “But when we had our first conversation, he was very excited to talk about his fan-base from The Punisher, [which] includes a tremendously pro-gun fan-base, and he was excited to bring, sort of, that side of his persona and that side of him that understood those people into this episode.”

To give a little background here, Bernthal was first announced as Marvel’s gun-centric The Punisher, aka Frank Castle, in 2015 as part of Netflix’s Daredevil Season 2. The character was spun off into its own solo series, which ran for two seasons before it was canceled, like the rest of Netflix’s Marvel slate. And over the course of both series, Bernthal has been very openly passionate about respecting the fans of the character, who had previously been burned by two movie adaptations (your mileage may vary on what you think of either, of course).

Even in the past few years, though, the conversations around the character — and gun control — have changed dramatically. Police officers have occasionally used the Punisher’s skull symbol to justify some extra acts of force, and added pins or flair to their uniforms. Marvel Comics, for their part, have not publicly spoken out about the usage, though Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway has stated that the skull symbol isn’t a point of pride; and a more recent book by writer Matthew Rosenberg put a finer point on it, having The Punisher tell a couple of cops not to use his symbol.

Bernthal, for his part, has not distanced himself from the character, but this week’s episode of The Premise, titled “Moment of Silence,” presents an interesting wrinkle on the whole debate. In the episode — and spoilers past this point — Bernthal plays a father grieving the death of his daughter during a school shooting, who decides to apply for a non-existent job in PR at the National Gun Lobby. It’s pretty clear early on that he’s got another agenda, but for the Gun Lobby the idea of having his backstory behind their sales pitch is too strong to ignore. Over the course of the episode, Bernthal’s character clearly becomes more and more unhinged, slowly adding to the arsenal he wears to work, all culminating in a moment of silence live stream that features him sitting silently at his desk, sponsored by the Gun Lobby. Is he going to shoot up the office? Something else? The tension of that moment, and throughout the episode, is definitely amped up to the extreme thanks to Bernthal’s Punisher-heavy resume.

“I’m not interested in lessons,” Novak continued. “I’m interested in entertainment. I’m interested in storytelling. I’m interested in people. So how do we tell that story without it being a lesson? … The fact that Jon has that gun background, has that gun fan-base, and has that respect, I think, for that world, that character being in the middle of this, I thought was inspiring as a director. Again, that’s not why I chose him. I just chose him because he can act. But he and I were very excited about that, that it wasn’t going to be so simple for the audience. A lot of people would have a way into this episode that wouldn’t ordinarily watch it, and might take away something totally different than what they expected, or than some of us expected.”

The Premise streams Thursdays on FX on Hulu.

Stream The Premise on FX on Hulu