The coveted roles of The Punisher and the new, still-friendly Spider-Man went to Jon Bernthal and Tom Holland, who costar in this year’s Pilgrimage. But that’s not just a fun (well, as fun as a post-Crusades movie can be) coincidence. The actors actually helped each other prep for their Marvel future while they were filming Brendan Muldowney’s Irish medieval thriller. Bernthal tells Variety that, though he stopped talking on set for a bit to get into character as a monk who takes a vow of silence, he and Holland ran lines together for their Frank Castle and Peter Parker auditions, respectively. The Walking Dead alum stayed off camera for Holland’s audition tape, but he was joined in his reel, which sounds like it was a doozy, by the Lost City Of Z star.
They use mock scenes, but it was a man telling this young boy about shooting a deer—describing the moment of killing a deer, I believe. We had to play that the deer was there and I see him getting ready to kill it. He was off camera and we were like, ‘get in here and do it with me.’
It actually seems rather apropos, since the Punisher did get his start in an Amazing Spider-Man comic. Both actors were successful in landing the roles; Holland will make his solo debut in Spider-Man: Homecoming this summer, while Bernthal’s Punisher series is expected to premiere this fall on Netflix. But since the Marvel films and TV series occupy distinct corners of the MCU, this is probably the closest we’ll ever get to seeing the Punisher and Spider-Man pal around.