The guest
Jon Bernthal: Actor known for The Walking Dead and The Punisher, and host of the Real Ones podcast.
What this episode covers
Jon Bernthal joins Joe Rogan for a wide-ranging, reflective conversation about why he started his podcast Real Ones, which he uses to platform police, gang members, prisoners, and others whose voices rarely get heard, deliberately pairing people from opposite sides of the same streets. He recounts being a troubled kid who spent two years training at the Moscow Art Theater in the late 1990s, an experience of beauty and brutality that he credits with saving his life. He shares the pivotal July 2009 fight in Venice Beach that nearly sent him to prison and triggered the vow that reshaped his life, leading to The Walking Dead one year later. Throughout, he and Rogan dwell on forgiveness, redemption, masculinity, fatherhood, and the danger of writing people off, including his controversial decision to interview Shia LaBeouf after abuse allegations.
Recommended on this episode
MediaRecommended
The Walking Dead
“God damn was that a good show”
“the early Seasons especially like season one God damn was that a good show I mean it just captivated the minds of people”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Stranger at the Gate
“beautiful documentary”
“there's a beautiful documentary coming out called stranger at the gate that's about his life”— Jon Bernthal
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
MediaReferenced
The Punisher
“the less you're gonna believe me as a tennis coach or as a mathematician or The Punisher or whatever whatever it is”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
Fury
“we go do Fury and we get to talk to you know guys who are really in tanks in World War II”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
Honey Boy
Shia LaBeouf
“he wrote this movie sort of about his own life called honey boy that got nominated for an Oscar and he played his dad”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
King Richard
“the movie that you know he got the Oscar for King Richard I was in that movie and I was at every award show”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
Night at the Museum 2
“I had just done Night at the Museum too I played like Al Capone in Night at the Museum too and the posters were everywhere”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
Icarus
“did you ever watch the documentary Icarus I didn't but I'm meant to it's a crazy marriage it's insane”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Seagull
Anton Chekhov
“the first play they did was the seagull and they put that play together in a summer home outside Moscow”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
Cinzano
“they did this play called shinzano which was about three guys one of them lost their moms three best friends”— Jon Bernthal
MediaReferenced
Fountains of Wayne
“my cousin was in a band called Fountains of Wayne and right in the beginning of covid he died way too early”— Jon Bernthal
ProductReferenced
Volcano Vaporizer
Storz & Bickel
“having comedians come over and we do hits out of this Volcano Vaporizer yeah and get so obliterated we literally didn't even know what we were talking about”— Joe Rogan
BookReferencedISBN verified
Quran
“she greeted him in this way that he had never seen before and she invited him she gave him a Quran”— Jon Bernthal
Big reveals from this episode
- Bernthal describes the July 2009 Venice Beach fight where he knocked a man out, the man cracked his head on the pavement, and Bernthal sat handcuffed believing he might face manslaughter.
- Cuffed at Pacific Division he made a vow that if he got out of it he would dedicate his life to his work, his family, and service.
- Exactly one year after that fight he was on the set of his first season of The Walking Dead, sober and engaged.
- On his third day in Moscow he intervened as two men smashed a woman's head against a building and had a gun put to his forehead.
- Having Shia LaBeouf on the podcast after abuse allegations brought him the first real public hatred and backlash of his life.
- After the fight the man sued him for two million dollars in a civil case at a time when Bernthal had almost no money and was starting a family.
- The first podcast episode paired a Newton-division crash-unit cop, Jerry Ballesteros, with Dante 'Bojangles' Johnson of the Pueblo Bishop Bloods.
Worth remembering
- The Moscow Art Theater auditions thousands, takes 100 students, cuts the class in half each semester, and graduates roughly 10.
- Stanislavski's realism method spread worldwide via The Seagull's 1933 tour, reshaping all major American theater training.
- Russian director Meyerhold was executed in his apartment after a play he made was suddenly deemed anti-state.
- During communist times public audiences were illegal, so Bernthal's teachers performed the banned play Cinzano in subway tunnels and abandoned buildings.
- Moscow police with AK-47s stopped him for crossing the street wrong and let him go after he handed over 20 rubles.
- His cousin was in the band Fountains of Wayne and died very early in the COVID pandemic, leaving two daughters.
- Rogan calls his Siddharth Kara episode on Congo cobalt mining the heaviest podcast he has ever done.
- A giant JRE video plays on a roughly 50-foot screen in Times Square, which Rogan finds surreal given its laptop origins.
- Marine veteran Richard McKinney planned to bomb a Muncie mosque but became a devout Muslim and its president after a woman, Bibi, welcomed and fed him.
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