While the chances are very slim that Spider-Man and the Punisher will ever cross paths directly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you can take comfort in the idea that actor Tom Holland played a significant role behind-the-scenes in helping Jon Bernthal get cast as Frank Castle.
Spider-Man helped the Punisher. Image: Disney
While filming Brendan Muldowney’s medieval epic Pilgrimage in 2015, both Bernthal and Holland were in the process of auditioning for their respective roles in the second season of Daredevil and Captain America: Civil War.
In between takes, both Bernthal and Holland assisted each other with their audition tapes that would eventually be sent off to Marvel and secure their roles in the MCU. For his part, Holland went so far as to act with Bernthal on camera for his Punisher audition.
“They use mock scenes, but it was a man telling this young boy about shooting a deer — describing the moment of killing a deer, I believe,” Bernthal told Variety at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. “We had to play that the deer was there and I see him getting ready to kill it. He was off camera and we were like, ‘get in here and do it with me.’”
Bernthal returned the favour by helping Holland run lines for his Spidey tapes. The rest, as they say, is history.