Jon Bernthal, the action hero star known for Netflix's The Punisher, once wet his pants in order to make his acting classmates laugh.
In an interview on Hot Ones, Bernthal reminisced about attending the Moscow Art Theatre School and the most bizarre acting exercise he took. Bernthal's strangest experience came from a clowning class. "The first exercise was to make everyone laugh, but you couldn't use any words, and everybody was failing miserably," he explained. "Nobody could do it. So I put on my girlfriend's sweatpants [and] I got in front of the class... I stood there and I started acting like I had to go to the bathroom really bad. And then I just pissed myself in front of the class. And everybody did laugh, but, you know, why the fuck did I do that? I had to sit there. So I think it wasn't a bad exercise, but I handled it in a stupid way."
Bernthal discussed a wide variety of topics during the interview, including the relationship between the macho, tough guy characters he often plays and his own views on masculinity. "As far as being a man, I think you need to be able to talk to anybody," he answered. "You need to be confident enough in yourself that you know that you can make a mistake, that you can learn from everyone, that you should approach and engage in dialogue with people that think completely differently than you."
He added, "The people that I really respect and admire in my life all have that. I think people who actually walk the walk, that don't just talk about it, they all kind of live by that code -- that you're constantly trying to get better, you're constantly trying to grow. It's not about implementing my will on you."
In addition to gangster "Jonny Boy" Soprano in Many Saints and vigilante Frank Castle in Daredevil and The Punisher, Bernthal is also known to genre fans as Shane Walsh in the early seasons of The Walking Dead, though he admits he stopped watching the show after he finished working on it.
He is currently set to act opposite Will Smith in the Richard Williams biopic King Richard and will star in the American Gigolo miniseries, based on the 1980 film by Paul Schrader, for Showtime.
Source: YouTube