Punisher star Jon Bernthal says he encouraged Tom Holland to include a stunt in his Spider-Man audition tape: "I don't think any of these other fools are able to do that"

Jon Bernthal says he helped Tom Holland with his Marvel audition tape when they worked on another movie together – and jokingly credits himself with getting him the role of Spider-Man thanks to a note he gave him.

"We did [Pilgrimage] about seven or eight years ago," Bernthal said during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "That was where both Tom did his audition for Spider-Man and I did my audition for Punisher. We actually made each other’s audition tapes on that film."

Pilgrimage, which was released in 2017 but was filmed during 2015, is set in medieval times and follows a group of Irish monks on a journey to Rome. At the time, Holland was auditioning to make his MCU debut in 2016's Avengers: Civil War, while Bernthal first took on the role of Frank Castle in 2017 in Netflix's The Punisher.

"I gave him the note, 'Tom, maybe you should run up that wall and do a double backflip and then start the scene,'" Bernthal continued. "And he was like, 'Yeah, you think I should do that? That’s not too much?' I was like, 'I don’t think any of these other fools are able to do that,' and he in fact did that. It’s not that I take responsibility for him, but you know, like a little something."

Holland went on to star in his own trilogy of Spider-Man movies, culminating in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home. Spider-Man 4, officially titled Spider-Man: Brand New Day, is also in the works but we don't know too much about the upcoming superhero movie just yet, other than the fact that Holland and Stranger Things star Sadie Sink are involved.

As for Bernthal, he played Frank Castle in two seasons of The Punisher, and most recently reprised the role in the Disney Plus series Daredevil: Born Again.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives in theaters on July 31, 2026. In the meantime, get up to speed with the story so far in the MCU with our guide to Marvel Phase 5, or take a look at what's to come in Marvel Phase 6.