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- [00:01]
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- [00:16]
Dave Davies
From Whyyn Philadelphia, this is Fresh AIR Weekend. I'm Dave Davies. Christopher Nolan's new film the Odyssey is a box office hit. But classic scholar Emily Wilson, who translated Homer's poem from the original text, says the film script is abysmally written, lacking in emotional depth and character development. And she adds, there are no sex scenes and all the food looks horrible.
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Emily Wilson
We need to have a protagonist with detailed, believable motivation. So the fact that these desires seem to be stripped from Odysseus. He doesn't seem to want food, doesn't seem to want sex. What does he want?
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Dave Davies
Today, Wilson talks about the joy and challenge of bringing the rich, ancient text to life in translation. Also, we hear from actor Jon Bernthal, who plays Menelaus, King of Sparta in Nolan's the Odyssey and the Punisher in the new Spider man movie. That's all coming up on FRESH AIR Weekend.
- [01:13]
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- [02:42]
Dave Davies
I'm Dave Davies. Christopher Nolan's new film, the Odyssey, has earned critical praise and big box office returns. This retelling of the classic story from ancient Greece features plenty of recognized stars, and it's also burnished the reputation of an established star in the world of classical scholarship. That's our guest today, Emily Wilson. In 2017, Wilson published her own translation of the Odyssey, a task that took six years to complete and had quite an impact. Wilson was the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English. The though that's not the first thing she'd want you to know about her work. Her translation was widely hailed in reviews for its vibrant language and faithfulness to the original Greek text attributed to the poet Homer. Her translation sold thousands of copies and was added to high school and college curricula across the country. Wilson was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and, after she followed with the translation of the Iliad, a Guggenheim Fellowship. Christopher Nolan has cited her translation in discussing his approach to the character of Odysseus in his new film. In a review, Wilson called Nolan's film abysmally written and lacking in psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth, though she said it's still an event to celebrate because it's getting more people into theaters and interested in the classics. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies and chair of the classics department at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of several books, including a new one coming out in September. It's a collection of essays introducing readers to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome and the challenges of translation and exploring some modern themes such as parallels between the hip hop of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion and the comedies of Aristophanes in 5th century Athens. The book is titled Crossing the Wine, Dark Sea. Emily Wilson, welcome to FRESH air.
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Emily Wilson
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for your zinnia and having me.
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Dave Davies
Zinnia, right.
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Emily Wilson
Yes, hospitality.
- [04:43]
Dave Davies
I thought we would begin just because a lot of people know something about the Odyssey but may not have thought about it in a long time. Just give us a quick summary of the plot. What is the story about?
- [04:54]
Emily Wilson
The story is set in the aftermath of the mythical Trojan War, and it centers on the mythical Greek hero from Ithaca, Odysseus, and the final sequence of his very long, extended journey home. In Greek, there's a word nostos, from which we get nostalgia. A story about a journey home from war. The Odyssey traces the story of how Odysseus escapes from the island of Calypso, a goddess with whom he's been spending the past seven years. And finally, after many misadventures makes it back to Ithaca, and after many more misadventures on Ithaca, reunites with his son Telemachus, his wife Penelope, and slaughters the suitors of his wife.
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Dave Davies
Okay, that's a good quick summary. In interviews before Christopher Nolan's film was released, you recommended that people should go and see. You wrote a pretty tough review. Do you still think people should see it?
- [05:51]
Emily Wilson
Absolutely, I think people should see it. I think there's a lot to think about and talk about and I think it's a good time at the movies. It's a big spectacle. There's a lot to think about, both in terms of what is this film saying about our times and about war, violence and deception in our times, and also what it's doing with the source material. I do think that it would have been better if Nolan had hired a scriptwriter because that would have solved a lot of the issues. But I also think the actors are amazing. It's a star studded cast and they're doing that absolute best with the script they were given.
- [06:21]
Dave Davies
Right. Actors are amazing. Not doing very much with character. Right. I mean, the language here was pretty tough. You're right. I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script. It's a family friendly audio visual spectacle like an elaborate fourth of July fireworks display with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth. You also complain that there are no sex scenes and all the food looks horrible.
- [06:43]
Emily Wilson
Yes, I mean, that's the laugh line. But the serious point I was trying to get to with the laugh line about no sex, no food is that I think if we have a quest narrative, whether it's in a poem, a novel or a movie, we need to have a protagonist with detailed, believable motivation. He needs to want something. So the fact that these desires seem to be stripped from Odysseus. He doesn't seem to want food, doesn't seem to want sex. What does he want? He wants to assuage his guilt. And that seemed to me rather a thin motivation, especially compared to the rich, layered characterization of both Odysseus and the other characters in Homer. But also just compared to a good movie. I would like to have deeper characterization in a film. I would like to care more.
- [07:27]
Dave Davies
By the time I saw the film, I had spent a lot of time preparing for this interview. So my head was into the Odyssey and some of your work. And I found the film disappointing, honestly. And one of the reasons was that the gods and goddesses in the Odyssey are really active creatures. They intervene in human events. They are angry at times and jealous and capricious and compassionate. And they're just kind of missing from this film, aren't they?
- [07:52]
Emily Wilson
They're kind of missing. I mean, there's a moment when Zendaya, who's sort of Athena but maybe not, says to Matt Damon, Odysseus, who's complaining that the gods don't speak in a language that mortals can understand, and Zendaya says, who doesn't understand thunder, fire, a baby's cry? We understand those things so implicitly. The gods are present. But I felt the film in some ways wanted to have it both ways, that there's a noise in the soundtrack. There's thunder, of course Zeus is there. There's Zeus's law, which is repeatedly invoked. And yet it's also very unclear. Are we actually supposed to believe in Zeus and Poseidon, or is Calypso a goddess? Is Circe a goddess? I would have liked a little bit more of the divine.
- [08:36]
Dave Davies
Yeah, you get a sense in the poem, and I listened to your translation of a world that was really different, where people felt the gods, they weren't entities that they occasionally prayed to, they were out there all the time. And that was a very different kind of world.
- [08:52]
Emily Wilson
Yeah. I mean, I love the alien ness of the Homeric poems. I mean, they both have this, in some ways, very familiar narrative about community and family and homecoming, and yet also things that are so alien, such as animal sacrifice, which runs all the way through the Odyssey and the Iliad.
- [09:08]
Dave Davies
Well, we're not here to talk about the movie. I want to talk about this work that you do, which has gotten so much attention and praise. You know, you've been been reading ancient Greek for a long, long time. You've been teaching it to students for decades, using many of the existing translations of the Odyssey. I was surprised until I read your book because I didn't know how many times it had been translated. What made you want to try your own after teaching it for so long?
- [09:32]
Emily Wilson
Part of the answer was certainly informed by having taught it in translation as well as lived with the original Greek poem for so long. I felt in my many iterations of teaching the Odyssey and the Iliad in translation, using multiple different 20th and 21st century translations, that there were things I wanted to get across to my students in the classroom that were very difficult to convey using the existing translations. One of those was the fact that the original Odyssey is a poem. It's in regular, traditional meter, designed for performance out loud. Most people in antiquity, over many centuries, experienced it as Performance poetry performed by rhapsodes who would learn sections or the whole thing by heart and perform it rhythmically, probably with music accompaniment. So the lack of meter in most existing 20th and 21st century translations seemed to me a big omission. And I was constantly saying to my students, remember, it's a poem. But then we would read a bit and it didn't sound much like a poem. And then the other thing is that the Homeric poems are also proto dramatic. They were composed before drama really existed, but they're multivocal. They have these different characters who speak in different voices, have different perspectives. And I felt some of those proto dramatic qualities. The multivocality was very often flattened out in existing translations that I'd used with my students.
- [10:57]
Dave Davies
You know, I think you say in your new book at some point that translation is impossible. Translation of poetry is really impossible. I mean, I had this realization many decades ago when I was looking at a poem by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. And I knew enough Spanish to read the Spanish and the English. And it dawned on me that you can't really translate poetry the same way you would translate, you know, a, a court deposition or a UN speech. Because poetry uses language in a very sophisticated way to convey images and emotions and impressions. And if you use those same words in a different language, it's not going to work. You have to kind of absorb the impact and reinvent it. Right?
- [11:37]
Emily Wilson
Yes. Poetry is, of course, the ultra marked kind of language. It's language which draws attention to itself as language. And of course, different poetic traditions mock language in different ways. So in the archaic period, the Homeric poetry uses dactylic hexameter, which is a regular traditional meter associated with narrative poetry. So in order to create the same effect, I use the meter that's traditional in English, which is iambic pentameter, rather than using free verse or prose, which is what most modern translators do. And then similarly, Homeric poetry is marked by other sound patterns such as alliteration and assonance. So again, I mean, if you're translating, translating an AD or a court deposition, you may not need to think about the sound effects in quite the same way as I think you do need to think about the sound effects if you're translating a poem, especially one that's designed for oral performance.
- [12:33]
Dave Davies
Wow. So you really put yourself in a difficult position here. You're not only taking these sophisticated ideas and images and stories, trying to put them in English, but you're doing it using meter in iamic pentameter and you also used the same number of lines as the original poem.
- [12:50]
Emily Wilson
Yes. How many?
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Dave Davies
12,000, something like that?
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Emily Wilson
Over 12,000, yes. So that was another thing that I thought on reflection about my experience in teaching the Odyssey in many different translations was that as you said before, translation is very difficult. There's never a one to one equivalent of this word in Archaic Greek means exactly the same as this word in contemporary English. So you're always thinking Maybe there are 10 different words I could use there. So the temptation is always to expand on the original, to use three or four words where the original might use only one. But then, of course, you're also betraying something that's essential also to the experience of the original, which is its pacing and the rapidity. The propulsive quality of Please tell me more, tell me more, keep going, is very much part of the experience of Homer in Greek and I felt was diluted by the verbose quality of quite a lot of existing translations.
- [13:47]
Dave Davies
Well, we're going to talk about this a little more. We need to take a break here, though. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Emily Wilson. She's a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania who has translated the Iliad and the Odyssey. Her new collection of essays is titled Crossing the Wine, Dark Sea. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR weekend.
- [14:07]
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- [14:41]
Dave Davies
I'm Dave Davies. As audiences are still streaming into theaters to see Christopher Nolan's $250 million adaptation of the classic story the Odyssey, we are speaking with University of Pennsylvania classics professor Emily Wilson. Her translation of the odyssey, completed in 2017, was praised by critics and scholars for bringing the ancient text to life. Nolan cited her translation in discussing his approach to the character of Odysseus in his film. I want to hear some of what you do. And it's interesting, you know, in your book you note that English translations of the Odyssey date back to 1611, I think, and continue up and some of them are very recent within, you know, in the 21st century. So I thought we would Take a passage, a familiar passage, maybe have you give us the reading in the original Greek, and then maybe talk about one of the existing translations and then give us a sense of what you did with your own. So what passage would you like to read to us?
- [15:43]
Emily Wilson
So in the book, I discuss at great length the challenges of translating what's called the proem of the Odyssey, which is the first few lines of the poem. So maybe we can focus on that. Andra moen per musa polutropon hos mala polla plank the. Pollon danthropoen didenastia kaino unegno polo docen ponto pathanalgia hon kadathumo arnemanos hen tep soucen kain noston he tiron alud hosto hyem nosper autoi gar sveteres in a tastalies sin olonto nehepioi hoi catabus super elio estion autar hotuisin a felitter nostimon emar ton hamathen getha thugater dios eepa kaihemin.
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Dave Davies
And that's our guest classics professor, Emily Wilson, reciting the first few lines of the Odyssey in the ancient Greek from memory. Very well done. You know, I've seen you do this a lot on tape. You are a real performer.
- [16:58]
Emily Wilson
I love to perform. I love to ham it up. It's fun. Yeah. Yes.
- [17:02]
Dave Davies
Do you picture yourself then, like an actor on a stage, or do you picture yourself, I don't know, a couple thousand years ago in a hall, doing this before a Greek audience?
- [17:13]
Emily Wilson
I mean, I want to try to channel the experience of being a rhapsode. And of course, there's overlap between being the kind of archaic Greek poetry performer who would learn bits of Homer by heart and perform them, and being a translator that I'm trying to channel the experience of the original and then convey it for new audiences or listeners.
- [17:31]
Dave Davies
All right, now, those words that you just recited have been translated many, many times in English and other languages, of course, But I'm going to ask you to give us the translation of one that's well known, and then we'll talk about how you translate it in your own work.
- [17:47]
Emily Wilson
Yeah. So I'll read the Robert Fagel's translation in free verse, because that was, I think, is still a very popular translation. So I think it's worth continuing to talk about because it's a translation that many people read. Sing to me of the man Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds. Many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home. But he could not save them from disaster. Hard as he strove, the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all, the blind fools they devoured the cattle of the sun and the sun God blotted out the day of their return. Launch out on his story Muse Daunter of Zeus. Start from where you will sing for our time, too.
- [18:49]
Dave Davies
That's Robert Fagel was the translator, a very widely known translation. So what is in there that was added or modified from the Greek?
- [18:58]
Emily Wilson
So I think there are lots of very interesting choices, and I'll just pick up on a couple. One is the choice to repeat the word sing when the original verb in the start of the Odyssey. In contrast to the Iliad, where the verb invoking the muse is sing. In the Odyssey, it's tel. It's. So it starts in a way at a more casual or a more ordinary level as we're building up towards what is in some ways a more domestic story than that of the Iliad. So I think there's something quite striking about choosing to translate a tell verb with a sing verb. So there's a grandiosity to the language. I also think it's interesting how FAGL's very, very often adds in metaphors, idioms, one could say, cliches that are common in contemporary American English that don't correspond to idioms or metaphors in the orig. So, for instance, we have twists and turns time and again. Of course, the idea of launching out on the story as if the story is like a boat. None of those metaphors are there in the original Greek. And of course, there's nothing wrong with adding in a lot of metaphors. It's a friendly gesture to the reader. But I think if you haven't read the original, you may not quite realize how much is Fagl's domesticizing and adding things to bring this ancient poem closer to the assumed metaphors and ways of thinking of his 20th century American readership.
- [20:26]
Dave Davies
Okay, so let's hear what Emily Wilson did when you sat down. You took six years creating this translation. This is the opening lines of the poem.
- [20:35]
Emily Wilson
Yes, this is the opening lines of the poem. And I should also say that this is a rewrite. This is not my. Not exactly the same as my published 2017 version, because I'm actually in the process of doing it all again. So I'm gonna do this. Expanded version Expanded New Read Translation Sorry about the spoiler there. You can cut that out if to you want. That's fine. Tell me about a complicated man, Muse, who was lost so long and fled so far when he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. And how he saw and understood so many people and so many places and suffered so much in his heart at sea as he was struggling to save his life and bring his men back home. But even so, despite his efforts, he did not protect them. Poor fools. They died by their own willfulness. They ate the cattle of Hyperion, the sun, who took away their chance of home. These events now tell us also Goddess, daughter of Zeus, begin from anywhere.
- [21:37]
Dave Davies
So one of the things that people have really, really noticed is that you describe Odysseus as a complicated man. And there are a few words in the original which don't translate easily. A man of many turns. Right. And so translators have done all kinds of things with that in saying it's complicated. Well, I mean, you. You've thought about this a lot. I know from reading your book you spent a lot of time going back and forth, but it's what it does. It's sort of. It doesn't tell us exactly in what way he is complicated. And I guess what it's sort of saying is, hang in there, you're going to hear quite a story about this guy.
- [22:11]
Emily Wilson
Yes. I mean, I see it in a way, as a teaser for the poem to come. It piques your interest because you're not told. Right. A very definitive thing about Odysseus. So I think it's very much a choice on the part of the composer of this poem not to use one of the more common epithets for Odysseus, such as polumetis, meaning crafty, or polumechnos, meaning that he's skilled in technological inventions like the wooden horse. But this much more rare epithet, polutropos, which Fagels translates as twists, a man of twists and turns. It suggests a twistiness, a turniness, a layeredness which applies both to the protagonist and the poem and his journey. And we don't yet know how many disguises or turns will this protagonist take, or what will it look like, what will it sound like in the narrative
- [23:01]
Dave Davies
of the poem, and kind of the many faceted character of Odysseus, I guess, is one of the things that you really miss in the movie.
- [23:07]
Emily Wilson
That's the shame. I mean, I think the movie is doing something, in a way, very brave by stripping away everything that we expect. And in my, I certainly feel this way, love about Odysseus in the poem, which is that he's clever and multiple and smart and therefore a fascinating character. Whereas the movie gives us a version of Matdaemon as Odysseus, who is not required to be smart. Instead, he's just constantly troubled by anxiety about his role in the Trojan Horse and the Trojan War.
- [23:38]
Dave Davies
Let's talk a little bit about your background. You grew up in England in a family of scholars. Your sister Bea is a noted food writer. Tell us a little about your childhood. What kind of kid were you?
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Emily Wilson
I was a real nerd and I'm still a real nerd, as you can probably guess. I mean, I spent so much time my childhood reading, I was always very shy and introverted.
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Dave Davies
At age 8, you had what you've described as a turning point in your life. Most of us don't have turning points at age 8. I think maybe you were in a play. Tell us about this.
- [24:08]
Emily Wilson
Yes. So I went to the local primary school and the teachers there were getting sick of doing nativity plays every year, so they wanted to mix it up and use their creativity. So they did a kid's adaptation of the Odyssey and Bea was Helen of Troy. She was great. And I got to be Athena and I got to make my own tinfoil helmet and we got to gouge out the eye of the headmaster who played Polyphemus. He was wonderfully game and let us do it. And it was such fun. And for me, as a very shy child, I realized that there was this wonderful outlet through the world of stories, especially through the world of Greek stories, mystery. So it turned me on to the fact that this world of magic existed and I was the wrong generation for Percy Jackson. But I read all of the kids adaptations that I could get my hands on. And then eventually I went to a high school where I could learn Latin and Greek. And so my life was made.
- [25:07]
Dave Davies
Emily Wilson, thank you so much for speaking with us.
- [25:09]
Emily Wilson
Thank you so much.
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Dave Davies
Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania who's translated the Iliad and the Odyssey. Her new collection of essays is titled Crossing the Wine, Dark Sea. Now let's hear Tanya Moseley's interview with the actor Jon Bernthal, who plays Menelaus, King of Sparta, in Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey.
- [25:35]
Tanya Mosley
Here's Tanya, my guest today, Jon Bernthal, has spent two decades playing the kind of men you'd want to avoid and somehow he makes you root for them. Anyway, this summer he's in two major films, reprising his role as the Punisher in the upcoming Spider man movie and starring in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. His breakout role in 2010 was as Shane on the Walking Dead, a sheriff's deputy protecting a band of survivors from zombies until he becomes the greater threat. He won an Emmy as Mikey, the brother whose ghost haunts every episode of the Bear. And this year he starred in the Netflix hit series his and hers and appeared on Broadway and Dog Day Afternoon. Bernthal says he couldn't have predicted any of this. He grew up in Washington, D.C. a baseball player better known for fighting than acting, and by his own telling, he was a kid headed in the wrong direction. An acting teacher saw something in him and sent him, of all places, to one of the world's toughest classical theater conservatories in Russia. He returned transformed, co founded a theater company, performed in dozens of stage productions, and spent years grinding through sitcom guest spots in small film roles before his break finally came. In the Odyssey. Bernthal makes his Christopher Nolan film debut playing Menelaus, King of Sparta. A few weeks into production in the Moroccan desert, the cast shot the Trojan horse sequence, one of the film's most iconic scenes. Matt Damon's character and more than a dozen warriors cram inside the belly of the horse, waiting to invade Troy. The horse sits partially submerged, and Bernthal draws the short straw, neck deep, treading in freezing water that was supposed to be heated. And word has it, as Bernthal stood there shivering, Nolan offered to pull him out, but he refused. Jon Bernthal, welcome to Fresh air.
- [27:36]
Jon Bernthal
Thank you so much for having me. It's a real honor.
- [27:38]
Tanya Mosley
Why did you refuse to get out of that cold, freezing water?
- [27:41]
Dave Davies
Oh, boy.
- [27:41]
Jon Bernthal
I don't feel like I drew the short straw at all. I think anytime you know that you really care about something or you believe in something, if you have the opportunity to sort of be the one to say, send me first, let me show you what I can do. I feel like our grit and our dedication is the one thing that we have control of in this world. And I love doing this. I love that I got to work for Chris and with Chris. And if he wanted to send somebody, I wanted to be that first one for sure. I think that's, you know, I would jump at that again.
- [28:16]
Tanya Mosley
It's interesting Matt Damon said, you pushing through that uncomfortable moment, I mean, like, really. Cause it was the hardest role he said he's ever played, just physically. And so to see you sit in that uncomfortable situation actually pushed him to push through his discomfort. Tell us a little bit about that character and the significance of you being submerged in that water for all of that time.
- [28:42]
Jon Bernthal
Look, you know, so kind of Matt to say that, but like I said, I really wouldn't have had it any other way. You know, when you look at that film and the experience for the folks that made it, I remember my first day arriving there, just seeing the look in his eyes. He's a guy I know. He's a guy that I respect deeply.
- [29:02]
Emily Wilson
Yay.
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Jon Bernthal
Yeah, for sure. And just, you know, the first words he said to me when I saw him on this beach with thousands of extras in Morocco right after traveling across the world, he just said, john, I've never seen anything like this before. And I said, me, too, man. But if you haven't seen it, well, no one has.
- [29:16]
Tanya Mosley
Well, you have had quite a busy few years. And the other film that's coming out is Spider Man. You've played Frank Castle for 10 years, and you've been pretty protective of this particular role. Like, you take up for him and all of his shortcomings as well. And you bringing him to this Spider man movie rated for kids. What did you. Or did you negotiate or refuse to let them soften when it comes to the Punisher in particular for this movie?
- [29:49]
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, look, I think historically, this is a character, you know, for the folks that don't know, you know, it's a character whose family was killed in sort of a shootout between a bunch of different criminal figures from the underworld, and his family and children were taken from him right when he got back from fighting overseas. He's a Force Recon Marine, and in our version, a Marine Raider. And it brings up so many issues. But I think beyond just sort of the spiraling, reeling loss of his family and how he's reacting to that, we've really sort of delved into issues of PTSD and traumatic brain injury. And the feeling with so many vets who come home, guys who. Who are tip of the spear, vets who really feel lost and wayward and don't know what to do next. And, you know, look, I think I've said before, I was quite trepidatious and hesitant about sort of getting into the superhero world. It wasn't something that I was looking to do. It wasn't something that I sought out.
- [30:48]
Tanya Mosley
How come?
- [30:49]
Jon Bernthal
You know, for a few reasons, I think, you know, the folks that I've respected the most in acting, some of my heroes, not that I respect the most, but a lot of my heroes sort of never went that way. And I think times have definitely changed. But, you know, to have superpowers or to fly through the air, I just, that, just never. I think the characters that I'm really interested in are enormously grounded. I try to make them and I try to find things about them that I can deeply relate to or they take me down a path that scares me intensely. And so I have to go sort of explore that path.
- [31:25]
Tanya Mosley
And with the Punisher in particular.
- [31:28]
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, look, I've said before, there's, there's no way that I could begin to take on that character if I, if I wasn't a husband and a father first, first and foremost. And, and, and, and to fully and palpably understand, you know, what the feeling of, of, of loving people on this earth and, and, and, and happily give my life for these people on my earth. How, on this earth, how, how would it feel if these people were taken from me? And so, so I always wanted to Frank to live there. And he's not a character looking for the light. He's not a character looking for things to get easier or for things to get better yet. He's a human being. And I think all the time with my, you know, the roles that I play, I love opportunities to turn my back on the audience. And I love to sort of take it too far, to try to push myself to a place or push the audience to a place where they can no longer be with this character, but then try to win them back through showing the fragility of their heart, showing how brokenhearted they are, showing how much they're, how much pain they have. Because I do think pain is a real adhesive and I think it's the thing that really connects all of us.
- [32:30]
Dave Davies
We're listening to Tanya Mosley's interview with actor Jon Bernthal. He plays Menelaus, King of Sparta, in Christopher Nolan's epic the Odyssey, and he reprises his role as Frank Castle, the Punisher in the new Spider man film realm. We'll hear more of their conversation after a short break. I'm Dave Davies and this is FRESH AIR Weekend.
- [32:51]
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- [33:52]
Dave Davies
This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Dave Davies. Let's get back to Tanya Mosley's interview with actor Jon Bernthal. He returns as the Punisher in the latest Spider man film, Brand New Day. He plays Menelaus, King of Sparta, in Christopher Nolan's epic the Odyssey. His breakout role was as Shane in the Walking Dead, and he won an Emmy for his role as Mikey in the Bear. He just ended his run on Broadway, starring alongside his longtime friend Eben Moss Bachrach in the play Dog Day Afternoon.
- [34:24]
Tanya Mosley
I want to talk a little bit about the beginning so that we can kind of understand this a little bit about you because it's so clear your toughness has a history. You grew up in Washington, D.C. 1 of 3 brothers. You went to Sid Will Friends, the Quaker school where presidents have sent their children. It's kind of a place known for nonviolence and peace, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And by your own telling, here you were in this school in fights and always chasing the most dangerous thing in the room, it seems. What did that look like?
- [35:00]
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, I think never fighting in school ever, you know, And I really think that's sort of the value of, of that school, you know, were really ingrained in me, even if it took me years and years for them to sort of come out and really come to fruition and to really understand and believe in them. But there's no question that, you know, when I was a young, scared, confused man that I did, I would run into the run towards the most wild, the most dangerous situation.
- [35:31]
Tanya Mosley
What do you think it was you were attracted to about it? What did it look like?
- [35:35]
Jon Bernthal
I think for so many young men, it's, it's about fear. It's about fear and it's about shame. There's a wonderful book that has meant so much to me, and I really suggest everybody read it, but especially, I think, young men. There's a book named Townie by Andre Dubu iii. It's incredible memoir, but it, but it sort of, it really sort of tells the story about how fear and shame, you know, can kind of lead to violence and how we sometimes become the very thing that we're scared of. And I do have a real relationship, I think, with danger that I have been in some situations that could have gone many ways. And I think to a certain point, I think that that's really important. I also am so grateful that I'm so far past that now and so far beyond that now. And that mostly that I found this work that all of the reckless abandon and sort of wild things that I got into as a young man, I can bring that same energy into my. And hopefully I can bring these kinds of folks. I can bring a real humanity to these kinds of folks, and through that same sort of reckless abandonment and wildness. And I think that that is. That's my favorite way of working.
- [36:50]
Tanya Mosley
So you're a young man and you are in this school where you're learning all these wonderful things about conflict resolution. I heard you talk about there's this Quaker ritual where you all would sit in silence, and then when you had something that you needed to say, you could say it. Can you describe that?
- [37:07]
Emily Wilson
Sure.
- [37:07]
Jon Bernthal
I mean, it's, you know, the way that Quakers worship is so beautiful. And, you know, there's no hierarchy in that religion. There's no priests, there's no rabbis, there's no ministers. There's just this fundamental belief that there's that of God in everyone. And that's something, again, that at the time, you know, I looked at those meeting for worships as just a time to. To either sleep or look at girls or, you know, because you all sit
- [37:32]
Tanya Mosley
in a room and it just be quiet.
- [37:33]
Jon Bernthal
Everybody, silence. You know, every coach, every security guard, everybody from buildings and grounds, every teacher, every administrator, every student, you would just sit in silence together. And the idea is, if that of God moves you, you get up and you address the congregation, whatever comes from your heart. And I fundamentally believe in that.
- [37:52]
Tanya Mosley
Did you ever do that? That.
- [37:54]
Jon Bernthal
I did. I did. I only did it once. I only did it once. And. And it. It was actually, strangely after I. I had gotten into an altercation outside of school, and I talked about. I've never spoke about this before, but there was a man who, Who.
- [38:09]
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Who.
- [38:10]
Jon Bernthal
Who came after my little brother on a basketball court in, in. In D.C. and I ended up getting into an altercation with this man. And, and, and I spoke about it because I was so scared, but I ended up having this just unbelievably profound sense of sorrow for this man. And I really empathized with this man, and I really saw a lot of myself in this man. At that time, that was the only time I spoke. And it was a profound experience because I didn't plan to speak. I didn't go in saying, today's my day to speak and meeting for worship. It really did just hit me in the moment, which was strange for that point in my life.
- [38:49]
Tanya Mosley
Your father was a corporate lawyer and is that right?
- [38:52]
Jon Bernthal
He became that? Yeah, at first, yeah.
- [38:55]
Tanya Mosley
Your grandfather a musician and a producer, and your mom and brothers are also powerhouses. I mean, you come from a really impressive family. It sounds like discipline and accomplishment were a big part of the foundation of you guys. And how would they describe your place in the family?
- [39:13]
Jon Bernthal
Oh, boy. I was definitely the black sheep. You know, I was definitely the one who got in trouble. I was definitely the one who.
- [39:22]
Tanya Mosley
You're the middle boy.
- [39:23]
Jon Bernthal
I was the middle boy. You know, both of my brothers are enormously, sort of, quote unquote, successful. So my eldest brother, you know, right out of college, got into the news. He was a producer. I think he won four Emmys. By the time he was 22, he was the youngest, youngest producer on TV. And then he started this small firm, which it was enormously successful. And then my little brother, who just kind of was always that way. He was an all American football player and played basketball at Princeton and, you know, went to medical school. My wife is a ICU trauma nurse. I was living with my wife and my little brother when he was in medical school. And I was a starting struggling actor, just taking odd jobs to get by. But, you know, my brother now is, you know, he's the head of oncology and orthopedics here at ucla.
- [40:15]
Tanya Mosley
How proud your parents must be of you guys.
- [40:17]
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, but again, I gotta tell you, my dad grew up in a, you know, split family home. You know, my parents didn't come from much. There was never a huge onus in my house for achievement or they weren't, you know, pushing us. You know, we lived in D.C. we had an open door policy. You know, my house was the house that, you know, if you were in trouble, you came to talk to my dad. If you needed a bed, you came to my mom. You know, they were foster parents. They took in foster kids. The alchemy of how they did it was so extraordinary. And I have to tell you, without a doubt, I am the failure of the family. I've done the least by far. And what they are most proud of is how close we are. And my parents really put up with a lot with me. They really did.
- [41:03]
Tanya Mosley
What do you think it was that had you driving towards that danger for you as a young person? Because I do think it plays into the way you're able to give such a real performance of these conflicted and violent people that you often portray.
- [41:21]
Jon Bernthal
I don't know. I mean, honestly, it's a good question. You know, as a young man, I know I saw my older brother get picked on a good bit, and I know that I sort of made a choice that that was never gonna happen to me. And I know that I was really sort of fell into sort of a natural protector role for my little brother. And then I think it just kind of got carried away. And I think that again, you know, I think never underestimate the power of fear and shame, you know, And I think you can go from somebody who's very scared into somebody who is very scary. And I think that that is just the sort of the natural progress, progression of things, unfortunately, so much of the time. And then I think it's. You also then have a. A potential to go to the next place, which is, you know, you can start using that. You can come to a place where you're comfortable and you're confident. Confident and you're open to all kinds of thoughts. And there's. There's. You're not led by fear, you're not led by shame. You're really.
- [42:27]
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You.
- [42:27]
Jon Bernthal
You become curious. And I do genuinely believe that's where I am now. I'm really hungry and open and curious. And I really try not to judge folks. And I really do see that I found wisdom and grace and beauty in folks that a lot of people would label as some of the scariest people out there.
- [42:50]
Tanya Mosley
Acting finds you, though, in a very interesting way, almost by accident. So you're this hellion in Washington D.C. as you put it. You go to Skidmore College to play baseball. You walk into an intro acting class as a freshman thinking that you can kind of sleep through it. And the first assignment is for you to bring something you care about and talk about it in this acting class and you forgot. So you grab your catcher's glove and you spin this story that your mother had given it to you on her deathbed, but she's alive and well. And do you remember how you felt after you gave this monologue and you looked around the room and you saw the responses of everybody?
- [43:38]
Jon Bernthal
I was blown away. It was an out of body experience. I had told this story and I knew that it took that leap to sort of jump into something it never Dawned on me that it even mattered whether it was true or not in that room. I knew my back was against the wall. I know I hadn't brought anything. I. I knew it was an enormously emotive room and a level of sort of openness with these young artists, these serious young theater artists that I was completely unfamiliar with. And I knew that I had to jump. And it was no different, honestly, than jumping into a street fight or jumping into a football game or jumping into a situation that, okay, there's only one thing to do here. If you're sparring and boxing. Okay, let's go. You just take that step and you go. And. And I have, from a young age, been quite addicted to that step. And I knew that that step was necessary there, even though I had no idea what I was doing. And I always come back to this word, reckless abandonment. You stop thinking, you get out of your own head, and you just go forward and you try to connect with something bigger. And I do remember kind of coming back to myself with tears down my eyes with the story that I had completely made up, but then also noticing while I was telling the story, the sort of grip, the real palpable grip that I had over the other folks in the room, and I saw the emotion from them, and I knew that it was something special, and I knew that it was something. Something very powerful. And your teacher.
- [45:10]
Tanya Mosley
Your teacher, though, yes, she saw the talent in you, but she called Bull. She knew that this was Alma Becker.
- [45:16]
Jon Bernthal
Is her name Alma Becker? Yeah, her name's right here on my wrist.
- [45:19]
Tanya Mosley
You have a tattoo?
- [45:20]
Jon Bernthal
I do. It's of the Moscow Art Theater in Alma's. Alma's name. And, yeah, she saved my life. You know, I mean, she was as. You know, what I found that day with her was a level of vitality and a level of. You know, I always sort of thought of the arts in my own sort of naive way, that it was a soft place. It was a place of just complete acceptance and not one of rigor and discipline and real vitality. And boy did she. Boy, did she give it to me and sort of ripped me apart.
- [45:58]
Tanya Mosley
And she saw something in you?
- [46:02]
Jon Bernthal
She did. She said, yeah. Her punishment was that I had to audition for the play, for the college production.
- [46:08]
Tanya Mosley
So you did that, and you did that for a while. You started to really get into it. You started to really feel it. And her answer to you, as she saw your talent blossom, was that you needed to go to Russia, to the Moscow Art Theater School, one of the most demanding, classical, conservatories in the world. It is 1999. You don't speak a lick of Russian and you go, why Russia of all places?
- [46:35]
Jon Bernthal
I think just like what you were talking about with, you know, Mr. Nolan. In the beginning, I would have done anything Alma told me to do. I wanted this. It didn't take long. I auditioned for that play, and I remember telling my best friend Greg Zumas that summer. I remember sitting down with him when we had, you know, we were delivering pizzas at the beach. And I remember telling him, man, this is what I. What I have to do. This is what I'm gonna do. Like, there's no question. And I think, number one, you know, this sort of private school kid from D.C. who thought he was all big and bad, you know, getting out and really seeing the world and seeing Moscow, I think would be enormously humbling and just be a reality check that I need to. I think she also knew that I needed to kind of get away from all the people that I was with and that it was, you know, a group of young men that sort of crave danger is much different than one man on his own. But mostly, you know, Russia is and was a place with such a rich theatrical history, where being an actor is such a serious profession. You can't do it without real rigorous training. There's statues of actors, you know, in the city. It's much more akin to being a soldier.
- [47:50]
Tanya Mosley
And it's that way because it's not taken for granted there.
- [47:54]
Jon Bernthal
Absolutely.
- [47:54]
Tanya Mosley
Because it's been. It's policed, it's been censored, of course.
- [47:57]
Jon Bernthal
I mean, actors have been assassinated, directors have been assassinated in their homes. The opportunity to get a group of people to gather publicly and to put on a show was something that for so long was controlled by the city state. It was controlled by the state for all of my teachers. So, you know, for them, you know, this was not a hobby. This was not something that you just got to do. It was such a privilege. It was such an honor. An honor that's. That. That they performed in plays where had they been caught. They risked imprisonment, they risked assassination. Putting on theatrical productions that weren't state sponsored was absolutely risking their life. And they did it anyway, all of them. It changed everything for me.
- [48:38]
Tanya Mosley
It's really interesting that she saw in you that a place like Russia. Cause when we think about Russia, I mean, conditions are tough. It is rough. You went to Russia and you're like, wait, I thought I was a tough guy.
- [48:52]
Dave Davies
Oh, yeah.
- [48:53]
Jon Bernthal
The brutality there was unlike anything I had ever seen. But so was the beauty. Look, you know, I had guns, multiple guns pulled on me. You know, within my first week there, you know, I had, I saw, you know, people that were left dead in the street. I saw a level of desperation, of wildness, of unbelievable disparity between those that have and those that do not. You know, people called it the wild, wild west, but it was, I mean, it was run by criminals. I mean, that's just what was going on there then.
- [49:26]
Tanya Mosley
And, and you were yet going to school every day, going to class every day?
- [49:30]
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. You know, living in this tiny little place with four other people. I slept on the floor. We turned the lights on. You know, the cockroaches would go everywhere. You'd feel them climbing over you all at night. The buildings had curfews, so you, you know, you could only get in and out at certain times. And then if you needed to get out, you know, you'd throw the fire hose down and you'd rappel down out of the windows. I mean, it was, it was a wild place and a wild time, but the most alive, the most impactful time of my life. Life, without a doubt.
- [50:01]
Tanya Mosley
Well, Jon Bernthal, I really thank you for your work and I thank you for this conversation.
- [50:06]
Jon Bernthal
I appreciate you having me, I really do.
- [50:08]
Dave Davies
John Bernthal speaking with Tanya Mosley. He plays Menelaus, King of Sparta in Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey, and he reprises his role as Frank Castle, the Punisher in the new Spider man film. Fresh AIR Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Our executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer this week is Adam Stanischewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez, Wisconsin. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tonya Moseley, I'm Dave Davies.
- [51:06]
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Emily Wilson
Etc.
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