I recently got a chance to sit down with Tom Jane who plays Frank Castle in the upcoming Lions Gate release The Punisher. As we relaxed in a quite corner of a hotel lobby in downtown Seattle. Tom seemed a little tired but he was quick to start talking about a role he really seemed to take to heart and found a lot of inspiration from.
Yeah, I guess so. I just had a lot of fun with it, I’ve been looking to do this kind of thing for a long time, it took me a long time to commit to The Punisher with Marvel because I just wanted to make sure we were making a movie that was true to the comic book and was true to the dark, gritty, urban sensibility but was still funny. The comic has this wonderful, irreverent sense of humor and that was important to me.
Just as an actor, it is a hard genre to break into, a hard type of movie, the action film, to get involved with. I’ve been waiting to do this kind of thing, to take a shot at bringing something a little different, because I’m not a weightlifter or a wrestler, there’s a certain thing that they have that I don’t have. What I have is that I want to bring a sense of heart to the movie, make something that lives on the edge, it’s a little bit risky, this movie, it’s ultra-violent, it’s got a lot of heart, it involves you in a way that people are walking out of it saying, “This movie is really violent, WOW!” And you know what, the movie really is not that violent, there’s really not that much blood, compared to other stuff that we watch, but we do get creative with the way that we kill some folks, but really what I think people are responding to is the emotional sentiment of the film, how vengeful it is and just how explosive the emotion of the film is, it is affecting people in a way that they’re looking at the violence and it’s connecting on a human level and therefore it’s not just watching bodies getting blown away.
Frank doesn’t take out people just to take them out, there’s always a very specific reason he does that stuff. If he was a real animal, he would have screwed Rebecca Stamos in the apartment and just left a wake of misery and death behind him, but he does what he does out of conscience reasons and he’s very tethered to his own sense of morality, it’s his own sense of what’s right and wrong. So in that way I’m very proud of the movie.
You had mentioned concerns about making sure the story was done right and that a mix of the old and new comics were used as the basis for the film. How much of this was due to the failed effort of the Dolph Lundgren Punisher film and how much were you allowed to contribute to the creation of the character?
We drew inspiration from the Welcome Back Frank series and we drew inspiration from Punisher Year One and from some of the War Zone comics that is where the Mickey character comes from, but as we got into the script and I started going over the comics with the writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh we started adapting this thing to start incorporating the tone of the irreverent sense of humor, which I felt was a great balance to the pathos and the tragedy and the grim subject matter.
We needed a sense of heart and Jonathan’s really collaborative and I did get in there and we take the script apart and put it back together and I did get input into my scenes and how they go. I tried taking out all the dialogue I could, if I could say it with a look or a gesture, without speaking, then I would do that. I only spoke when I absolutely had to, and that’s something I grew up with, the films of the 70s, the guys didn’t talk that much, all the best actors that I really admire are able to communicate so much without words. He’s a smart man and he is a very physical character, he doesn’t have to talk. The key to Frank Castle for me was the physicality.
It’s just a rigorous, pain in the ass process. It is what was required to fulfill the demands of the part and I don’t like that stuff very much. I don’t like the bodybuilding and all that crap, but I put myself through it because those are the demands of the role. I got the best guys to train me and I went on a professional bodybuilding schedule and just gave it my all. It was just something for me to come as close to an approximation of the Frank Castle comic book character as I was physically capable of given the time that we had, and we had about six months before we started shooting.
Oh yeah, they just beat the crap out of me on this movie. The whole fight with the Russian [wrestler Kevin Nash] was impossibly intense and I don’t know how I got through that. It was the training, the conditioning, it was the physical shape that I was in. The sequences where they beat the crap out of me and throw me off the dock onto the canoes and all that garbage, blow me up and all this stuff, that was rough. It was painful, it was really painful.
Do you see any type of franchise possibilities for The Punisher?
Absolutely, we definitely plan on doing at least one more and that was something we knew going in and I was very careful at getting involved with a franchise that was going to be something that I would want to do another one, and I wouldn’t feel saddled in doing another one and it wouldn’t be painful for me, but it would be something that I would actually enjoy doing and allow us to continue to play with that moral line between what’s right and wrong.
How far would you be willing to take the franchise?
Well personally I can only look at the one coming up, and I have to make that one as relevant and as real for myself as I did the first one. Whatever happens after that would be dictated by how the next one turns out.
Frank is an awesome anti-hero, something incomprehensible happens to him, he loses his entire family, it’s just not comprehensible that something like that could happen to any of us and there’s something about the idea that after 9/11 and after what’s gone on in the world today incomprehensible things have happened to this country over the past couple of years. My feeling was that I could relate to this movie because of some of the things that have gone on in this country, that spoke to me.
It is interesting how most superheroes have this super strength and Frank takes a lot of punishment, he gets almost as good as he gives in some situations, and it shows that he is still a man.
Yeah, he doesn’t have any super powers and he can’t magically rise above his enemies, he’s a regular guy and if he puts himself in that situation and decides to take that path, there’s hell to pay and he is willing to pay it.
There were not a lot of CGI effects in The Punisher, what are your thoughts on that?
CGI has basically turned into cartoons for buffoons. I am weary of going to the cinema and watching cartoons in my movie, and it’s it’s much like in the days of Ray Harryhausen when they were spectacles in their own right, they didn’t look anything like reality but they were cool to look at because we just hadn’t seen it before and now it’s kinda run amuck, it’s a fix all, “Well we’ll fix it in post…we’ll CGI that part,” and it just becomes over laden.
It was great, we had a couple of scenes together and he was a very gracious, supportive, creative guy, he was a wonderful man. He called me up after the movie and talked to me for about half an hour on the phone about how much he enjoyed my performance and how much he enjoyed the film so that was exciting. It was great, a real honor.
Have you had any feedback from the die-hard comic book fans?
Yes I have, and that’s been surprisingly positive because you never expect to please these guys, they are a very hard crowd to please.
Every now and then we get some ex-Navy SEAL guy telling me I didn’t put my finger on the trigger in the right way, stuff like that but you just have to let it kind of wash over. I feel sorry for those guys that can’t enjoy a movie because they’re busy looking at the details to see if he is carrying his weapon in the proper way in that exact situation, that must be tough for those guys.
What are your aspirations going into the future now?
I try to make films that challenge me in some way and I try to make movies that connect with me on an emotional level, but I want to make entertaining films.
I’m just a little bored with adult entertainment these days, everything’s PG-13 and so washed out and I’m a little more interested in a hard nosed type of film that can be made for a slightly smaller budget. I’m interested in these action type films that you can make for between $30 and $60 million that don’t have to turn around and make $150 million at the box office to have a return and for me to have a career. I think there’s a niche to be filled with the kind of movies that I grew up with and loved so much and I’d love to continue in that vain.
Do you look to get involved in any way other than acting?
Yeah, I’d love to. I wrote a script recently and we’re tossing that around and I’d like to produce and eventually I would like to direct. I think directing is a big job and takes a while to learn the ropes to figure out how to do that well is not something to be taken lightly. Definitely working my way up there.
Talking about directing is there anyone that you look up to that you would like to work with or model yourself after?
I’m inspired by a bunch of different directors and most of them are old school directors. I especially enjoy the work of Don Siegel, I like the style of directing that doesn’t call attention to itself, the Sidney Lumet, Don Siegel style. There’s also the work of Max Ophüls who had such an incredible cinematic style, the style of his films were so integrated into the story and the plot and undertones of what he was saying that it’s hard to see his direction too, but he had a flair to him, some camera moves that were so specific to the story. It’s a real art and I tend to look toward the artists of the business.
I’m much more interested in a reality based type of movie.
Outside of acting what do you like to do are comic books something you are in to?
I do a lot of reading and I do a lot of comic book reading. I read a lot of Punisher books now but I didn’t before, but now my interest has been peaked and I follow a lot of writers.
Outside of the movie business I hang out with my kid and hang out with my family and that’s a real sense of pleasure and a reward for me. That balance between my home life and my life at work is really important. I try to keep that going and fresh, hanging out with my baby and my fiancée [Patricia Arquette] is very fulfilling.
Did you use that sense of family as a motivation playing Frank Castle?
Yeah it’s something that is easy to tap into as a father just how much I care about my kid and my fiancée. If something like what happened in this movie happened to your family it has just got to be overwhelming and Frank becomes damaged goods after that, never quite the same. It’s a personal tragedy that happens and rearranges your complete outlook on life and the world.
