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Thomas Jane

Thomas Jane

Thomas Jane portrayed Frank Castle/Punisher in The Punisher and the unofficial short film Dirty Laundry which he also wrote.

Significant roles[]

  • Zeph in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
  • Nemo in The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
  • Neal Cassady in The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997)
  • Burke Hicks in Face/Off (1997)
  • Todd Parker in Boogie Nights (1997)
  • Pvt. Ash in The Thin Red Line (1998)
  • Carter Blake in Deep Blue Sea (1999)
  • Young Jimmy Gator in Magnolia (1999)
  • Brack in Jonni Nitro (2000)
  • Mickey Mantle in 61* (2001)
  • Billy/Walter Downs/Mephisto in Original Sin (2001)
  • Dov in Eden (2001)
  • Peter Donahue in The Sweetest Thing (2002)
  • Henry in The Dream Catcher (2003)
  • Andre Stander in Stander (2003)
  • Clay Bicks in Medium (2006)
  • David Drayton in The Mist (2007)
  • Maj. "Mitch" Hunter in Mutant Chronicles (2008)
  • Wayne Colson in Killshot (2008)
  • Ray Drecker in Hung (2009-2011)
  • Vegan Police in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
  • Jonah Hex in DC Showcase: Jonah Hex (2010)
  • Richard in I Melt with You (2011)
  • Joe Miller in The Expanse (2015)
  • Lt. Adrian Marks in USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)
  • Wilfred James in 1922 (2017)
  • Baxley in The Predator (2018)

Quotes[]

  • "We want to show our love for the character, really, and also the fans that love the character. Not only am I in love for the character, I also have a soft spot for the guys who love the character. You know, there were Punisher fans way before I knew who The Punisher was. There’s a certain kind of Punisher fan that I really love.
  • "That would be fun ... that would be awesome. I love that idea. [of bringing to the screen the miniseries Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe].
  • "[referring to his short film Dirty Laundry] I wanted to make a fan film for a character I've always loved and believed in - a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It's been a blast to be a part of from start to finish -- we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it."
  • "Not pushing anything. Just a fan film from Friends of Frank."
  • "Well as far as The Punisher goes I kinda said what I wanted to say with the short film and it was the version of Frank Castle that I always wanted to see and it was very gratifying to finally put it out there. Phil Joanou — a great director — and Chad St.John — a fantastic writer — and we just kind of got a dream team of guys to put that together and I would love to see the three of us do a Punisher film, but I don’t know if that would ever happen. I don’t know, again it’s like the studio seems sorta bent on making a two hundred million dollar version of a comic book movie. So yeah, I think the fans are kind of missing out."
  • "I've never really seen the whole thing. I usually sneak out of my premieres; go in the front door and right out the back [laughs]. I'm not a fan of watching my work. When I was a young actor, I watched myself so I could figure out what kind of animal I was. Billy Bob Thornton told me every actor needs to figure out what kind of animal they are so they can be that animal, but I don't think I've figured that out yet. I guess I want to be all the animals."
  • "It was hard, but rewarding. We didn't have any problems making the movie, although we tried to make Tampa look as menacing as it could ... which was troubling at times. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time in Florida, but creatively I wasn't a fan of making The Punisher in Florida. I never thought that went together very well. I thought there were better places for us to shoot the thing, but once I was down there, everyone was so great."
  • "I think we were the victim of Marvel's success with more cartoon-y superhero movies. There was a strong desire to keep some of that cartoon element in our movie, but I really wanted it to be dark and I think most Punisher fans did too. But people hadn't really cracked the idea that a comic book movie didn't have to look like a comic book yet. Without trying to toot my own horn, I feel like I was very instrumental in fighting for more realistic version of The Punisher. I remember bringing in Tim Bradstreet's very dark comic book covers to production meetings and saying this is what we have to make the movie look like. I won some of those battles and I lost others because there really was no precedent. It was a product of its time. There was no Dark Knight for these guys to lean on, so I'm happy that I got as much dark realism into the movie. All that said, I still think the fight that Kevin Nash and I put together set to opera music is a really entertaining piece of work."
  • "I'd been talking about my vision of The Punisher for years, and I finally hit on the idea of a short film that could show people my ideas. Then it became about finding the perfect guys to bring that vision to life, for me, the ideal guy was Phil Joanou. I happened to have met him a few months prior to landing on this idea, so he was the first guy I called. He really got on board. Chad St. John wrote my favorite script I've ever read called Motor City, which was basically a 100 page action film with no dialogue. It was a piece of brilliance, so we hatched what became Dirty Laundry, which was very satisfying because I didn't have to explain very much what I was talking about. We all liked the same stuff, had the same reference points and it was a great lesson for me. The success of it was vindicating. It felt good that my version of the character resonated with people."
  • "It was sort of my farewell to the character. I just wanted to get that out."
  • "I feel like I've played a true version of the character already. That's why I did Dirty Laundry. I wanted to create something that was truer to my own vision of what that could be. I feel like I put that out there. It was really well received. I hope that The Punisher will continue. I hope they get an idea of what it can be and how to make it successful. I hope that they use that short film as a template for how to make it truer to what that character is. I said what I wanted to say with that guy. I don't think I ever really was the perfect Frank Castle. I look at him as Italian. A guy who, I guess I'm the right age now, but I would see him as a weathered guy. My body is not quite perfect for Frank. I would see Frank as more of a square jawed, lock-jawed kind of guy. I don't know who it would be. I think you'd need an unknown to play Frank. He’s really the ideal asshole!"

External links[]

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