‘The Punisher’ Star Responds To Criticisms of Jigsaw’s Face

Even though previously leaked set photos showed a hardly-scarred Billy Russo/Jigsaw (Ben Barnes), fans still held out hope that the end product would look much more comic-accurate. Needless to say, once fans saw the trailer for The Punisher Season Two, Barnes’ Russo looked exactly like he did in the leaked set photos.

Disappointed at the lack of facial scarring, fan artist maestro BossLogic released concept art of what Russo could look like if he ended up much more disfigured, more like his comic book counterpart. The art gained enough traction that it ended up getting the attention of Barnes himself, who quickly took to Twitter to address fan criticisms.

“Awesome!” Barnes tweeted. “Hope you’ll see what we were going for when you see the whole show.”

Though not as scarred as some would hope, Barnes had previously revealed that his take on the character dug deeper than just a physical disfigurement. Barnes says a good part of Russo’s journey through the season is the mental toll the confrontation at the end of the first season had on the villain.

“I think what I’m allowed to say is that it’s not just about the physical,” Barnes revealed to CBR. “He’s had his head very much traumatized in the same way that veterans receive these kind of head traumas and psychological trauma as well, so he’s dealing with both of those things very much in a similar way to how veterans might deal with TBIs from coming back from war and everything. I think that that is what he sort of believes he’s gone through and he’s got brain damage and he’s got severe issues with his memory.

“I won’t go into specifically what he can and can’t remember because that kind of ruins the story,” the actor continued. “But he’s trying to piece together what happened to him and who he is and so there is the metaphor at one point used that his brain is the jigsaw which they’re trying to put the pieces back together, or it’s not necessarily about the lines joining up on his face, which is I think a much more interesting thing.”

What do you think of Russo’s look so far? Are you turned off like other fans or don’t you mind his new look? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

The second season of The Punisher drops on Netflix this Friday, January 18th.