Jane's pain

Muscle & Fitness, May, 2004 by Steve Mazzucchi

FOR THOMAS JANE, PLAYING THE TITULAR MARVEL COMICS hero in this spring's The Punisher meant nearly a year of intense preparation. Best known for roles in Deep Blue Sea, The Thin Red Line and 61*, Jane beefed up and dialed in to become FBI agent and former Special Forces operative Frank Castle, a man on a mission to avenge the killing of his family. "It's a balls-to-the-walls, take-no-prisoners, bad-ass action film," says Jane, whose costars include John Travolta, Rebecca Romjin-Stamos and WWE wrestler Kevin Nash.

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Q You went through hell for this film.

A Yes, I did. I still wince to think about it. It was the most intense thing I've ever done in my life, and it paid off, because that was the character--that was the kind of drive that he had, and that's what I needed to do in the part. I had a team of Navy SEALs training me in combat, martial arts, weapons handling and incursion tactics. It's like diving into a pool of cold water. You just suck it up and do it. There's no slowing down. You're in it until it's over.

Q How much weight did you gain?

A I started at around 165 and ended up at around 190.

Q What were you alming for?

A I wanted a particular look. I had images in my mind. I had pictures of bodies I thought were dead-on, guys I wanted to look like. Nobody famous. Just bodies with their heads cut off.

Q You've played physical roles before. Did that help?

A Definitely. The movies I've done in the past have been very much a training ground for me to get the skills together so that I can achieve something like I did with The Punisher. Everything counts. The physical training that I used to play Mickey Mantle, the character work that I did when I played Andre Stander, the South African policeman who robbed a bank (in Stander). It all goes into the pot.

Q How did you get the role?

A They approached me. I told them no. Too much f**king work, I didn't want to spend a year of my life in the gym. F**k that.

Q What changed your mind?

A The character. He's unrelenting and fearless, has a fierce approach to life, and he needed a voice. But playing a comic book character brings with it its own responsibility to get it right--though not as much as when I played Mickey Mantle and had to sit down with his sons--because everybody has their own idea of who this guy is. He's a survivor, the guy who lives when his whole family is killed. It's how you deal with that and what happens to you and the process you go through--why you're alive and what you have to show for it.

Q Could you relate to that?

A I came out here to Hollywood when I was a teenager with no money and lived on the street, and I survived. So I guess I relate to that in a way.

Q How does this Punisher differ from the 1989 version?

A The Dolph Lundgren version sucked. This doesn't. It's night and day. That was too much of a departure from what The Punisher was all about. This is much more faithful and much closer to the real guy.

Q How many different weapons were used? How high is the body count?

A Enough weapons that I went home many nights with blisters on my fingers and enough dead bodies that if I never saw another one I'd have seen too many. We fired a lot of live rounds downrange. The Navy SEALs' dictum was, "If you're playing a real guy, you have to know what it's like to fire a gun with intent to kill."

Q Do you still follow the program the SEALs gave you?

A Hell no! You have to pay me money to get in the gym. Money to keep the 20 f**king pounds on, money to eat like that. Now I'm eating doughnuts and drinking Budweiser! I'm in a great business in which they actually pay me to do that. I need motivation to get out of bed. When I'm into it, I'm loving it, but it's for a specific purpose. If I decided, Okay, I'm going to be a bodybuilder, and I'm going to kick all your asses and have the least bodyfat, I could do it. It gives me a goal. But to get girls or look good next to the water cooler, I can't do it. Screw the calorie counts and creatine. Pass the doughnuts!

Q Would you go through it all again for a part?

A Hell, yeah. Pay me a lot of money! I've never been in bad shape. When I stop working out, I don't turn into a fat blob. I can jump back in the gym and get myself back there tomorrow.

Q So could you take Dolph in a fight?

A No. I'd just kick him in the balls and run! I don't have to prove anything.

EDITED BY STEVE MAZZUCCHI