Movies

Jonathan Edward Bernthal (/ˈbɜːrnθɔːl/; born September 20, 1976) is an American actor.

Beginning his career in the early 2000s, he came to prominence for portraying Shane Walsh on the AMC horror series The Walking Dead (2010–2012; 2018), where he was a starring cast member in the first two seasons.

Bernthal achieved further recognition as The Punisher in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). He originated the role on the second season of the Netflix action series Daredevil (2016), and he headlined an eponymous series from 2017 to 2019. Bernthal's likeness was also used for the character in the Marvel Comics series The Punisher: War Machine (2017) and an ongoing Punisher comic book series.

His film roles include Snitch (2013), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Fury (2014), Sicario (2015), The Accountant (2016), Baby Driver (2017), Wind River (2017), Widows (2018), Ford v Ferrari (2019); Those Who Wish Me Dead, King Richard, and The Many Saints of Newark (all 2021).

Early life
Jonathan Edward Bernthal was born in Washington, D.C. on September 20, 1976, to a Jewish family. He is the son of Joan Lurie (née Marx) and Eric Lawrence "Rick" Bernthal, a former lawyer with Latham & Watkins LLP and chair of the board of directors for The Humane Society of the United States until 2019. His paternal grandfather was musician and producer Murray Bernthal (1911–2010). He has two brothers: Nicholas, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at UCLA, and Thomas, a consulting agency CEO who is married to billionaire and outgoing Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. His cousin was rock musician Adam Schlesinger (1967-2020).

Bernthal grew up in Cabin John, Maryland. He attended the Sidwell Friends School, graduating in 1995. He has often described his younger self as a "troublemaker". After high school, he studied at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, but dropped out. On the advice of his acting teacher, Alma Becker, he joined the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia. During his time there, he was a catcher for a Russian professional baseball team.