Posted in: Netflix, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: charlie cox, daredevil, jon bernthal, marvel, netflix, one piece, punisher

One Piece Director on Filming Daredevil/Punisher Rooftop Face-Off

Marc Jobst (One Piece) on filming the face-off between Daredevil (Charlie Cox) & the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) in the Netflix/Marvel series.

Most of you are currently enjoying his directorial work on Netflix, Tomorrow Studios (Netflix's Cowboy Bebop, TNT's Snowpiercer) & publisher Shueisha's live-action series take on author Eiichiro Oda's manga One Piece. But director Marc Jobst has also helmed episodes of Netflix's The Witcher, as well as episodes of the streamer's Marvel series Luke Cage and Daredevil. In 2016's Daredevil S02E03: "New York's Finest" (written by Mark Verheiden), Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle/Punisher have the classic morality debate over whether or not heroes kill and if everyone's deserving of redemption. But before we know it, their debate turns into an all-too-real & very deadly exercise in "What Do You Do?" In this case, Matt has one gun, one bullet, and three choices: kill the bad guy… kill Frank… or do nothing & let things play out. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jobst shares what it was like working with Cox and Bernthal on the very dialogue-heavy episode, finding the "true north" of the two opposing viewpoints at play, and why Jobst, Cox, Bernthal, and the production team pulled off in one night what should've taken three days.

"Yes, in that rooftop scene with Charlie [Cox] and Jon [Bernthal], it was summertime. It was super hot. We were shooting from five in the evening until five in the morning, and Charlie was chained up to this chimney. It was the first time Jon was speaking as the Punisher. He was super nervous about the scene, and Marvel was very nervous about that whole episode because there was a lot of dialogue. They said, 'Is it going to be a little bit stagey? How do we make this work?' And so I think they brought me in because I come from theater and because of my ability to work with actors," Jobst shared regarding why he believed he was brought aboard to helm the powerful one-on-one between Matt and Frank.

As the One Piece director saw it, the key to those scenes was to give both sides the chance to make their case – and leave the final decision in the hands of the viewers. "Beforehand, we had a chat about what those scenes were about. For Daredevil, he believes in redemption, and for the Punisher, it was all about revenge. So that was the whole discussion: Do we believe in redemption, or do we believe in revenge? And once you've got that focus, you can let it go. So, my job was to keep the tiller heading towards the true north of redemption and revenge," Jobst explained.

As for why filming that would normally take place over three days was accomplished in one night, it came down to Cox and Bernthal wanting to keep their respective emotions in the scenes as intensely consistent as possible. "So we started shooting that big two-hander, and normally, on those sorts of days, you're shooting maybe six-or-seven pages a day. This was a 14- or 15-page scene, so that's three days of filming that goes into a heightened emotional moment and then ends with the big fight. But Charlie said, 'I'm not going to be able to come back tomorrow and find the same emotion that we're going to end today in.' And Jon said, 'Me neither. It's not going to happen.' So Charlie said, 'Can we just shoot the whole thing tonight?' So I looked at Jon and asked, 'Can we shoot 14 or 15 pages in a night?' So Jon said, 'Yeah, we'll do it. Come on. I know the lines," the director revealed. "So I turned to the crew, and I said, 'Guys, roll up your sleeves and get onto your tiptoes. We're going for this. And once the train leaves the station, we can't stop.' The only problem was that the dawn was going to rise, and we needed night. So we went for it, and they were extraordinary. We did it all in one night."

The first season of Netflix, Tomorrow Studios (Netflix's Cowboy Bebop, TNT's Snowpiercer) & publisher Shueisha's live-action series take on author Eiichiro Oda's manga One Piece is currently streaming.

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