The Punisher is a character who’s had more than his fair share of adaptations in the past. They’ve ranged from dark to colorful– though, in all fairness, all of been violent. Occasionally, they run off into the world of the ridiculous (though to be fair, that’s not exactly a bad thing). With the Netflix show, The Punisher, which is entering its second season in a couple weeks (it’s set to release on January 18), they are adamant about keeping things grounded.

This includes the implementation of Billy Russo into the story, who fans will know as the villain Jigsaw. The outlet io9 had a chance to visit the set of the Marvel Netflix show as they were filming the new season, and while there, they spoke with actor Ben Barnes, who plays Billy in the show, and the actor drove home how nuanced his transition will be to the baddie comic fans love.

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“At the end of the first season, we hear the doctors sort of saying that that Ben’s undergone surgery for stab wounds and wounds on his face, so he’s had a plastic surgeon try to fix him.”

“We’re talking about a deeply narcissistic character—in season one—whose mask of appeal in terms of doing his hair and the nice suits and all that kind of stuff has been stripped away from him. It’s about what he sees when he looks in the mirror rather than necessarily what other people see, because we didn’t want [Billy’s story] to be a horror show. It’s something more internal. We don’t refer to the character as Jigsaw in the series, but he very much has a jigsaw puzzle in his brain. It’s not about his face, it’s about the psychological, which is really something we wanted to focus on this season.”

In short, don’t expect a big performance like we saw in 2008’s Punisher: War Zone from Dominic West. I know that film has a lot of fans, but I could neither take it seriously nor have fun with it — though that’s just me. Given what we’ve seen from The Punisher already, this more grounded approach that is being teased makes a lot of sense, and I think it’s the right approach.

What do you think of Barnes’ comments? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: io9