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The Punisher’s Ben Barnes Wanted an “Uglier” Version of Billy Russo in Season Two

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”13481″ img_size=”800×450″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]One of the most talked about aspects of the upcoming second season of The Punisher is that Ben Barnes’ rendition of Jigsaw does not look entirely comic book accurate. You can look on Twitter and see the comparisons made between Barnes’ Billy Russo and Punisher: War Zone’s Jigsaw. In fact, you probably have some reservations yourself. Despite Billy Russo’s face being used as a cheese grater in the first season’s finale of The Punisher, his face still looks good, although; it would be hard to make Barnes ugly.

Which, Barnes apparently pushed for. In a sit down with LRM, Barnes spoke about how he pushed for an “uglier” version of his character:

“I was pushing in the beginning for [uglier],” Barnes told LRM. “We were talking about pulling an eye down and having a lip curl up, adding more scars. I did get an additional two (Laughs). But we had a really interesting long chat, and it kind of speaks to what I was just talking about, you know, grounding it in something. Logistically not only did he have these 12 hours of surgery…it was about something more than that, it was about this TBI, this traumatic brain injury, that he received from Frank, albeit not in service of his country, but here is this vet that receives this traumatic brain injury.”

“And then I think that a lot of what I was reading, the interesting articles about art therapy masks and all this stuff, is that so many people come back with so many injuries that are inside. They’re inside. And we always try to ground this show in things that are military and have two feet on the ground, and I think having him wander around like a sort of gruesome cartoon makes it all about narcissism and all about the aesthetic. And I think we wanted to make it about the Jigsaw in his brain and about how fractious that is in putting it back together. And he might see something when he looks in the mirror but it’s not about other people reactions to his look and I think that plays into the much more grounded and cerebral version of that character for me.”

Barnes, who has really done a fantastic job as Billy Russo; then went on to talk about the responsibility he felt for a show like The Punisher:

“It’s definitely not a cut and paste version from the comic books. You’ve gotta balance serving fans of the Punisher itself and of those comic books and of the history of that character, and I think [actor Jon Bernthal] does an amazing job of kind of being really honest about what the character is and should be. You’ve gotta balance that with a responsibility to make new and interesting and fresh kind of TV, because there are so many shows and you’ve got to kind of keep flipping things on their heads. Particularly for me, personally, this season, it was about me reinventing what Billy Russo becoming Jigsaw is actually about. Can I ground this in something real? We’ve had very comic book versions of The Punisher in various films, and I think this is the version of 2019. To try and find motivations for everything that every character does so it really resonates of just a drama outside of the fact that it’s a superhero show.”

The Punisher Season Two literally premieres in three days, how excited are you?