You've never seen anything in the Marvel universe that's as grounded, as gritty, as authentic, and as raw as what these guys did last year [in Season 1 of Daredevil]. What an amazing place to bring this character into, to attempt to up the stakes and to make it more dangerous. Hopefully, we were able to do that. But as far as those movies, my concern is this show.

The goal is just to try to get better and better, and the only way that makes sense to do that is to work with the best people. Surround yourself with the best artists and learn from them, and try to sink your teeth into the best material possible.

I went to school to play sports, but I got involved in theatre in college kind of by mistake. I ended up taking an acting class almost just to get rid of an arts requirement, but I wound up in this wonderful acting class with this teacher named Alma Becker who really saved my life. I was just kind of this knucklehead kid from DC and I was in and out of trouble all of the time. I took a theatre class and she really discovered something in me and I absolutely fell in love with it.

I think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.

Some people that are heroes to some can be looked at by another group of people as villains. As far as a middle point, just speaking for myself, that's exactly what to avoid.

I've never been a big gore guy.

At the end of the day, it's a show [Daredevil ] not about a superhero, but it's about a man. Hopefully, that's what we're doing with The Punisher, as well. It's an enormous honor to play this character. It's a character that's quite iconic and very important to a lot of people.