8 DAYS | 131BEHIND THE SCENES:
STORY (^) DOUGLAS TSENG
8 DAYS: The Punisher has been
adapted into three movies, but none
of them really took off. Did you study
those movies when having a crack
at reworking Frank Castle for the
series?
STEVE LIGHTFOOT: I’ve seen all the
movies, but we didn’t really reference
them. They’re such a different thing
— they are all two-hour action movies;
they’re driven by action. What we
are trying to do with the series is to
create a [character-driven] narrative to
sustain through 13 episodes. We try
to craft the show like a novel with 13
chapters — if you grab a great book
and sat by the pool, you can finish it in
one sitting.
I was kinda disappointed that
Daredevil’s Karen Page, played
by Deborah Ann Woll, is the only
crossover character in The Punisher.
Was there a list of
characters from
other shows you
wanted to bring
in?
I was a big fan
of what they did
with Season 2 of
PHOTOS: NETFLIX
MARVEL’S
THE PUNISHER
STEVE LIGHTFOOT, the executive
producer of the Marvel/Netflix series
on the challenges of accurately
presenting PTSD on the show.
Daredevil [where Frank Castle, played
by Jon Bernthal, was first introduced].
I thought the relationship between
Frank and Karen was great. Deborah’s
a brilliant actress; she and Jon have
really great chemistry. So when I
started pitching the show, I asked
[Marvel], “I’ve got some stuff for
Karen, can I please have her?” And
they said, yeah.
Frank Castle is a violent character,
and the show is pretty violent. Were
there discussions on how far you can
push the violence on-screen?
There were no outright discussions.
We took our lead from what the guys
had done on Jessica Jones, Daredevil
and Luke Cage, where the violence
depicted was pretty realistic.
Besides gun control, the show also
touches on war veterans suffering
from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
How do you make sure that you
weren’t making a TV version of
PTSD?
We did a lot of research. The truth
is, PTSD is a shorthand banner
that people use for all
different things. So the
first thing we couldn’t do
was be broad about PTSD. Frank
has that, but it has to be implicit
in the show, because the soldiers
returning from the frontlines all
have different stories. We were
keen to make it a show that spoke
to the fact that the US has been
sending guys to wars for 15 years
and when they come back, they
can’t not be changed by their
wartime experiences. I hope the
show delves into that in a pretty
interesting way. We don’t specifically
call it that, because it’s an incredibly
complex issue. In the show, we have
a character running a veterans’
support group. We spent a lot of
time trying to get that right. Most of
the guys in that group were actual
veterans. And it was a nervous day
for me, because I thought, “Jesus, I
hope I got it right.” These guys think
what we did was correct, and their
responses were pretty positive. You
could write 100 episodes about
PTSD and [still not understand it],
so I’m not going to pretend that we
[are an authority on the subject].
Marvel’s The Punisher is streaming on
Netflix.
8 DAYS | 131
The crossover:
Daredevil’s Karen
Page (Deborah
Ann Woll) pays
Frank Castle a
visit in The
Punisher.