Jon Bernthal on His ‘Brotherly Dynamic’ With Tom Holland in ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘The Odyssey,’ and Why Punisher Is Peter Parker’s ‘Cautionary Tale’

Jon Bernthal and Tom Holland‘s superhero trajectory is so intertwined, it could make its own comic book storyline.

In 2015, on the set of the period drama “Pilgrimage,” Bernthal and Holland filmed each other’s audition tapes for their Marvel roles as the Punisher and Spider-Man, respectively. Now, after playing the parts for a decade, they share the screen for the first time in “Brand New Day.” And the Sony/Marvel movie, which is now playing in theaters, is their second project together in as many weeks, following Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”

“It’s great to be able to do two in a row with my friend Tom,” Bernthal tells Variety. “It’s just so beautiful to come full circle.”

Bernthal took Variety’s call while he raced to the airport to finally head back to the west coast after a long tenure in NYC, where he’d starred in “Dog Day Afternoon” on Broadway, then did back-to-back press tours for “The Odyssey” — where he’d waxed poetic on his character Menelaus’ counsel of Holland’s Telemachus — and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” — where Frank “The Punisher” Castle becomes Peter Parker’s unlikey confidant, using his life as cautionary tale.

Lately, life has been blissfully busy for Bernthal: the past few months also saw him star in the massively successful Netflix limited series “His and Hers” opposite Tessa Thompson; headline the Disney+ special “The Punisher: One Last Kill,” which he co-wrote with director Reinaldo Marcus Greeen; and wrap up his Emmy-winning role on FX’s “The Bear,” with a special episode written by him and Ebon Moss-Bachrach titled “Gary.”