Why Frank Castle From The Punisher Looks So Familiar

Vengeance-obsessed vigilante Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, gunned, stabbed, and pummeled his way into our hearts when he stole the show in season 2 of Netflix's Daredevil. And while the proverbial antihero may have been the polar opposite of his lawyer-turned-crusader counterpart Matt Murdock, that definitely is not to say his methods—which include eye gouging, throat-slitting, Louisville slugging, and everything in between—aren't, ahem, efficient. 

The Punisher's very own standalone series promises to be an action-packed thriller with equal doses of humanity and hard-hitting renegade justice, and we couldn't be more excited that the man behind the skull vest is being played by none other than actor Jon Bernthal. We know what you're thinking—you know that scowl from somewhere. That isn't just your mind playing tricks on you—odds are you've probably seen him in action on the screen before. Want to know where? Read on to find out why the Punisher looks so familiar.

Bernthal got his big break in a genre that might have fans of his later work scratching their heads: in 2006, he was cast as Duncan Carmello, a contractor who lived with his mother, in the ill-fated 2006 CBS sitcom The Class.

The show, which chronicled the personal lives of a group of former elementary school classmates, only lasted one season, but it boasted quite the up-and-coming cast. Bernthal shared billing with future Mean Girls and Masters of Sex actress Lizzy Caplan, Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Parenthood's Jason Ritter. Despite the show's failure, Bernthal and the actors portraying the rest of his newly reacquainted buddies would go on to achieve their own success, each landing acclaimed gigs in the ensuing years.

Right around the time Bernthal scored the role he'd eventually become known for—more on that later—he landed a recurring role in Eastwick (2009), the short-lived comedic television adaptation of John Updike's fantasy novel The Witches of Eastwick. Portraying Raymond Gardener, token lazy, unemployed lover of beer, hammocks, and making up excuses, Bernthal would go on to appear in the first—and only season before the supernatural dramedy was canned by ABC.

Don't waste your tears on this cast, though—they may have played witches, but they were anything but cursed. Ashley Benson would go onto star in Freeform sensation Pretty Little Liars one year later, while Lindsay Price would nab a lead role in the Ellen Degeneres-produced sitcom Splitting Up Together. Jaime Ray Newman, Bernthal's onscreen wife, would reunite with the actor in The Punisher, playing Sarah Lieberman, wife of Frank Castle's hacker bud Micro.

As for Bernthal himself? Well...

We're guessing it's hard to avoid being typecast as a badass after portraying an increasingly amoral, murder-y ruffian in a show about the dissolution of humanity in a zombie-populated apocalyptic hellscape. But, for better or worse, Bernthal's next big role would see him return to the dramatic thriller genre, starring alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in 2013's appropriately named Snitch.

Bernthal portrays Daniel James, an ex-felon working at a construction company owned by Johnson's John Matthews. Hoping to turn his life around for his son and overworked wife, James has been living a clean life—that is, until Matthews, who realizes that James has two out of three felony strikes, convinces his employee to hook him up with a drug dealer... in order to save his estranged, drug-hustling son who was recently offered the chance to reduce his prison sentence for drug dealer names.

You know, like friends do.

The Wolf of Wall Street was a financial and critical success, which may have been what inspired Bernthal's interest in pursuing a role in Mob City, a TNT crime drama based on real-life accounts of interactions between 1940s LAPD officers and Los Angeles mobsters. What's more, the project was helmed by Frank Darabont, with whom Bernthal had worked in the first and second seasons of The Walking Dead.

The first actor officially cast on the show, Bernthal would go on to portray Detective Joe Teague, a tormented WWII veteran who finds himself caught between LAPD's Captain William H. Parker and notorious mob boss Mickey Cohen. Unfortunately—and you should've guessed this already, based on Bernthal's streak of bad luck on the small screen—the show lasted a mere six episodes before TNT put the kibosh on the love letter to classic noir.

Next up for the Bernthanator was the quirky, sad, super upsetting, we're-not-exaggerating-when-we-say-this-was-a-heartbreaking-freakin'-movie, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (c'mon—it's in the title). Written by novelist Jesse Andrews, who also penned the novel upon which the indie film was based, the film followed the teenage exploits of one Greg Gaines (the titular "Me"), Earl (..."Earl"), and Rachel Kushner (not gonna say it), as they struggle through high school drama, dip their toes into amateur filmmaking, approach young adulthood, and come face to face with the unfair nature of mortality.

Of course, Bernthal's character, a too-cool-for-school history teacher named Mr. McCarthy, is relegated to the sidelines, acting as a surrogate father figure to the younger cast and offering advice to Greg—which, as is often the case with young 'uns, he doesn't take. Ironically, whereas we're typically enthralled by Bernthal's show-stealing presence, it's McCarthy's mystery that makes the Havanera-shirted educator such a standout in a film otherwise populated by characters who wear their adolescent pain like a favorite pair of pajamas.

It's almost like Bernthal is contractually obligated to assume the persona of "bad dude with a gun who will make you pee your widdle twousers" in every other film. Following the quirky, sob-inducing Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and the morally complex Sicario, the soon-to-be Marvel renegade assumed the role of Brax, gun-toting hitman and brother to Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) in 2016's The Accountant.

While the film itself, which explores the repercussions of digging too deeply into insider financial deception, didn't exactly meet critics' standards, it did rake in big bucks on its opening weekend. And despite its total disregard for portraying autism in an accurate way, we got to see the fella who would be Punisher! Shooting people! With a gun! Like a meanie! Because Hollywood.