Jon Bernthal a real life street fighter before The Punisher role

Actor Jon Bernthal’s nose was broken 14 times in real life street fights before he signed on to play vigilante The Punisher on TV.
Jon, who also portrayed Ben Affleck’s tough movie brother in The Accountant, was first thrown in jail for his violent behaviour at the tender age of 17 in Washington D.C., but he decided to turn his back on trouble for good when he was detained by cops in Venice, California in 2009 after punching a man unconscious.
The 41-year-old was hauled off to the police station after knocking the homeless person out cold when he man refused to stop following him home and harassing his dog.
While the actor was handcuffed to a bench at the police station, he did not know the health condition of the man he hit, and the cops made it clear he could do serious time in jail of the injured street person didn’t regain consciousness.
“If that guy doesn’t wake up, you’re going away for life,” Jon tells Esquire what police officers told him that fateful night.
From then on, he resolved to let go of his troubled past.
“I know now life is more about working things out and heading off that violence,” he shares.
The rugged leading man has played several hard-hitting villains on TV shows like The Walking Dead and in films such as The Wolf of Wall Street, but his new role in Marvel’s superhero Netflix series is one of his roughest yet.
But Jon is now a family man who is living a quiet life in Ojai, California with his wife and three young kids, and he wants his children to appreciate the value of diplomacy.
“Extremism and lack of compromise is the enemy of what I want to teach them (my children),” he explains.