Jon Bernthal
speaker
633 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 8 Jun
Jon Bernthal’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Yeah, that sounds great. I ended up, because I'm a total shitbag, in the intro to acting class, which was the serious acting student class. And I had never seen anything like this before. And the first assignment was to bring in something that you really cared about to share it with the class. Everybody was sitting on the floor, which I thought was the weirdest fucking thing in the world.
Like, why are we sitting on the floor? And they were going around person by person. Theater people sharing. And they were taking it so seriously. Really emoting. And it just dawned on me. I totally didn't bring anything.
You just didn't want to participate. Anyhow, it was slowly but surely working its way to me. And the only thing I thought to do was to get my catcher's glove because I was going to fall practice right afterwards. And I kind of launched into this story about how my mother had given me this glove on her deathbed. And my mom's like alive and well. Yeah. I just thought that was sort of acting.
And I just told this story. And I'm like, you know, and then me and my brother, you know, we just have a catch and talk about mom.
And like, everyone's crying your eyes out.
I really went to this crazy place. And I'm like, Whoa, guys, I'm just doing the acting here. Like, chill out. And this woman, Alma, who's this magical woman from the San Francisco theater in the 60s and the 70s, was in original Sam Shepard shows. It's just great, fierce woman, made everybody leave. And she just ripped me the fuck apart. And then she said, but you're auditioning for the play.
Learn this monologue. Come back tonight and audition. I did. And I have no idea why I did. But I remember walking back to the house with the baseball players where I lived. And I remember reading the words and something was happening to me. I'm like, what the fuck is this? The same thing that was happening in that room. And I got in the play.
All these layers of, wait, a world like this exists? I can definitely identify with that. What I'll tell you for me more specifically was the guy who was getting in fights on the street, that guy was fake. That guy was scared. But what I found out, and still to this day, man, if I can tap in to like real people, genuine chaos and danger. I love my friends so much.
And I sort of went from the guy in the back talking smack, like, let's all go do this to, you know, the shame. I got to be the guy in the front. Okay, now I got to be the guy to do it one-on-one. Okay, now I got to be the one to like prove to myself that I can do it. This stupid, toxic, awful game.
But what I found was that intoxicating energy, if I could tap into that this way, I could do it in such a positive way that brought me closer to people. Both pursuits are full of fear. For sure. And I think in both cases, what I've really responded to is that it's a group effort and it's a collaborative effort.
And you get so close with, I know it probably sounds cheese dick and hokey, but like the soldiers that you're with next to you. The reason why I was getting in street fights is I didn't know how to tell my friends how much I loved them. Exactly. It was all it was. I love those guys. I didn't know how to do it any other way.
Yeah, which is like, oh my God.
Yeah, yeah, like bro. And my wife comes from a genuinely tough family. Her uncle is a WWE. He won the gold medal for American wrestling. Yeah. Kurt won the gold medal in 96. And Eric. They were teammates? Best of friends. Mark trained him.
Yeah. He was at Foxcatcher with him.
And he left to go train with my wife's dad.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. But I mean, my wife's dad's got even better stories. Oh, yeah, okay, wow, wow, okay. They're serious.
Serious family.
Yeah. And the truth is, I don't want to sell these guys short because they're not mongoloids. They're not simple. They're beautiful people with successful families and beautiful careers.
That was one of the biggest things for me. I remember there was this one time in D.C. when we were at a bar and there was some little stupid altercation. I think my little brother had gotten into it with some guy and I was fiercely protective. Because, you know, then you go to therapy and you start working on your anger. And it's so crazy that we're even talking about this.
But, you know, I really like keeping an anger journal and really whittling it down and doing the work. Like, what are the things? And one of the things for me are my brothers. I just knew from a young age my job... was to protect my brother. So going into certain situations, playing pickup basketball with them on the street, going out drinking with it.
Showing 481–500 of 633 · page 25 of 32
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