Jon Bernthal went through a lot during his time as Shane Walsh on AMC’s zombie drama, The Walking Dead.
Now that he has been killed off (oops – spoiler!) Bernthal is taking on a role in MCC Theater’s play Small Engine Repair. In an interview with The New York Times, the actor noted that the production struck him as a “dangerous play, with a masculine authenticity.”
Bernthal originally starred in the play’s first run in Los Angeles, staying with the show “up until two days before we started filming Season 2 of The Walking Dead, because I needed to get in my truck with my dog and drive to Georgia,” he said.
He’ll be appearing next in Martin Scorsese’s new film, The Wolf of Wall Street, set to come out in 2013. He said he was asked to shoot a monologue on video for the director. He remembered, “I’m like, ‘Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?’ Of course I can.”
Bernthal started his career by studying at the Moscow Arts Theater in Russia and from there, moved on the the American Repertory Theater, earning an MFA degree. He soon moved to New York but, like a lot of young actors, found it trying. “I really had a frustration living in New York, because I felt that, to be able to do the plays that you want to do and get the roles that you want on stage, I saw one path to it, to go get yourself on TV somehow,” he said. “And then those things open up for you.”
