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Marvel Actors: Before They Were Heroes

by Jason Smith

Marvel Actors: Before They Were Heroes

Over the years there have been many successful films and television shows that have come out of Marvel, from Spider-Man to Agent Carter. Marvel films, whether it’s Guardians of the Galaxy or Captain America: Civil War, have always been hugely popular at the worldwide box office. Currently, the highest-grossing movie of all time is Avengers: Endgame that made almost $2.8b in ticket sales. According to this article by New Free Spins No Deposit, some of the other highest-grossing movies behind Endgame are from franchises such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Disney.

With the introduction of Disney+, there are also some exciting new Marvel TV shows to watch too like the recently released WandaVision. Fans of Scarlet Witch and The Vision get to see their favourite characters out of the big cinema screen action and into something quirky and new. Although the show has a strange sitcom setup, some critics have said that the new WandaVision series was “delightful to watch”.

When we think about the actors who played heroic and iconic roles in MCU, one of the things that come to mind is: what else have these actors done in before they became our most beloved heroes?

Jon Bernthal aka The Punisher

Jon Bernthal in Eastwick

You might know him as The Punisher, the tough guy who never smiles and who can kill you mercilessly if you mess with his family. But do you know that before Jon Bernthal became The Punisher, he was a theatrical student in Moscow Art Theatre in Russia? It was there, in Moscow, the executive director of Harvard University Institute for Advanced Theater Training discovered him. After graduating, Bernthal moved to New York, where he began his career in theatre and later went on to perform in over 30 plays, some of which were with his own theatre company. His breakthrough was, however, not in the theatre, but television.

In 2009, Berthal booked a regular role in an ABC series, Eastwick, which was unfortunately cancelled after one season. But after the cancellation, he found critical success and found his breakthrough role of Shane Walsh in the award-winning series The Walking Dead that ran until 2012. From 2013 to 2015, Bernthal played various TV and movie roles until he was cast by Marvel in season two of Daredevil as The Punisher. This role would later lead him into his own superhero series, The Punisher, where his performance was praised as truly remarkable.

Krysten Ritter aka Jessica Jones

Krysten Ritter in Breaking Bad (with Aaron Paul)

Krysten Ritter in Breaking Bad (with Aaron Paul)

Before we came to know her as the bad-ass superhero Jessica Jones in the Netflix series Jessica Jones and the miniseries The Defenders, Krysten Ritter had already broken out as an actress in a few other successful shows. Before she made it big as the leading role in Jessica Jones she appeared in several TV shows including Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, ‘Til Death, and Woke Up Dead. However, her two standout roles in her career before Marvel were Chloe in Don’t Trust The B—- in Apartment 23 and also gained wide recognition as Jane Margolis in the AMC series Breaking Bad.

But Ritter’s career hasn’t just been in acting. She became a professional model while in high school and travelled to Philadelphia and New York as a model. She later established an international modelling career in New York and had modelled in Paris, Tokyo, New York, and Milan.

Clark Gregg – Agent Phil Coulson

Clark Gregg in Will & Grace (with Sean Hayes)

For some, it might be impossible to see Clark Gregg as anything other than the actor who played Agent Phil Coulson in the MCU films and Marvel TV shows. At the beginning of his Marvel career fans will have seen him make small appearances as Agent Coulson in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Thor. It wouldn’t be until The Avengers in 2012 that audiences would start to notice ‘Phil’ more. Fans would later rejoice as Phil Coulson returned as one of the main characters in the TV series Agents of SHIELD. The show was so popular that it ended up spanning seven seasons and 136 episodes. It’s often considered one of the best Marvel TV shows to watch, with Daredevil, The Punisher, Jessica Jones, and Legion, being popular choices too.

Clark Gregg has been acting since the late 1980s and had appeared in a range of TV series and movies over the years before becoming a Marvel favourite. He’s starred in The West Wing, The Shield, and has also appeared in odd episodes of Will & Grace, CSI: NY, and Sex and the City. As well as acting, he is also both a screenwriter and a director and has written and directed a black comedy film Choke back in 2008 and Trust Me in 2013. In his writing career, he also wrote the horror film What Lies Beneath, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford.

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