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\n Photo: Balazs Gardi for New York Magazine\n <\/p>\n
For Jon Bernthal<\/a> & Co., getting this play to the stage will be a lot like pulling off a bank heist. The 49-year-old actor is in only his second week of rehearsals for his Broadway debut, the first theatrical adaptation of Dog Day Afternoon, and the show is scheduled for technical rehearsals the following week. He\u2019s blocking out scenes from this sweaty powder keg of a story in a rehearsal space downtown during one of the coldest winters in New York memory. \u201cIt takes me back to living here in the early 2000s,\u201d he tells me during a brief break, \u201cwhere times were tough and all I wanted was to be onstage.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernthal plays Sonny, the character made famous by Al Pacino<\/a> in Sidney Lumet\u2019s seminal 1975 film, based on the true story of a failed bank robbery in Brooklyn in 1972 by former teller John Wojtowicz. The project is in Bernthal\u2019s wheelhouse in the sense that he exudes the brooding machismo that defined the New Hollywood; the play\u2019s director, Rupert Goold (2019\u2019s Judy with Rene\u00e9 Zellweger and 2024\u2019s\u00a0ill-fated Tammy Faye on Broadway) compares him to Marlon Brando. \u201cHe brings a sort of bruised masculinity,\u201d Goold says. Bernthal has built a reputation over the past decade playing tough guys: assassins, dirty cops, soldiers. Most famous among his characters is Marvel\u2019s Punisher<\/a>, the high-kill-count vigilante \u201canti-hero \u201d whose skull insignia has been adopted by some police as an aggro logo.<\/p>\n Sonny feels like a departure; unlike Bernthal\u2019s mercenaries, Sonny fumbles with his gun, has a bleeding heart, and lays his vulnerabilities bare. He is also one of cinema\u2019s first great queer characters; the film reveals he is robbing a bank for his partner\u2019s gender-affirming surgery. \u201cIt\u2019s a queer story,\u201d Bernthal says. \u201cIt\u2019s an absolute celebration of love that knows no boundaries. And it will always be that, but I think it\u2019s also an examination of masculinity. It is an unbelievable mirror of what happened in Minneapolis and with armed confrontations with both federal and local troops: How mob mentality can effect real-life violence on the streets and stoke their fears and bring people together as much as it can completely divide people.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hard to believe this is the first time the story has been adapted for the stage, given how perfectly suited it is to the confines of the theater, concentrated in one location and told in tension-ratcheting, near real time. For an actor like Bernthal, the film\u2019s legacy as a complicated classic of American cinema is a lot to shoulder. \u201cIt\u2019s not lost on me how just incredibly audacious this task is, to touch material that\u2019s so deeply sacred,\u201d he says. \u201cLumet\u2019s film is one of the most treasured pieces of art our country\u2019s ever made.\u201d He cautions that this telling of the story, by playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, is not just a straight adaptation of the film. \u201cThis is a Stephen Adly Guirgis version of this story. There\u2019s no one, in my opinion, who tells New York stories like Stephen does. He sees New York through a lens that\u2019s so unique, so specific, so singular.\u201d Guirgis grew up in the city in the 1970s, and his plays, including 2014\u2019s Pulitzer winner Between Riverside and Crazy<\/a>, involve characters at the fringes of city life, including convicts, addicts, and sex workers. Guirgis says there will be nods to the film, calling it an \u201cunspoken contract\u201d with the audience: \u201cThere has to be a bank robbery. It has to go south. At some point, Sonny has to scream \u2018Attica!\u2019\u201d Beyond that, Guirgis is making a New York\u2013based love story that is \u201cdysfunctional, but it\u2019s pure and it\u2019s raw.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Twenty-five days before previews. Bernthal is Hollywood\u2019s go-to bruiser with Stanislavski bona fides. He started his career studying at the Moscow Art Theatre School and co-founded a Brechtian troupe that moved from Skidmore College to Bushwick in 2001. He had not performed onstage in years when, in 2022, Guirgis reached out to ask if he would participate in a reading of a new play he was working on at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. \u201cStephen\u2019s one of my favorite playwrights of all time,\u201d Bernthal says. He said \u201cyes\u201d before Guirgis told him what the play even was. Bernthal is based in Ojai, which made the reading special for him; it was the first time his kids ever saw him act onstage. Bernthal continued to research the true story of Wojtowicz, and Guirgis held more readings over the next couple of years, and the play evolved as they went. \u201cThe whole process is extraordinarily alive and fluid and changing,\u201d Bernthal says. \u201cI was told that\u2019s how Stephen works. I\u2019ve done readings with him where I\u2019ve received the pages as I\u2019m walking on the stage.\u201d Leading up to Dog Day Afternoon\u2019s Broadway premiere, Guirgis is still updating the script; he tells me, \u201cWe\u2019re in rehearsal, but I\u2019m writing it, I\u2019m still trying to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Notably missing at rehearsal this week is Bernthal\u2019s co-star and longtime friend, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who is wrapping filming on The Bear<\/a>, the series that led to both of their Emmy Awards. Onstage, Moss-Bachrach will play Sal, Sonny\u2019s tragic co-conspirator in the heist, played in the film by Jon Cazale. Bernthal\u2019s history in theater is tied to Moss-Bachrach, he tells me; his \u201cfirst gig ever\u201d was as Moss-Bachrach\u2019s understudy in Fifth of July Off Broadway in 2003. \u201cMy New York theater story started by getting to watch him every night,\u201d Bernthal says. \u201cI\u202ftrust him implicitly.\u201d Moss-Bachrach got Bernthal his role on The Bear as main character Carmy\u2019s late brother, who looms over the series in poignant flashbacks. When Bernthal told Moss-Bachrach about working on readings of Dog Day Afternoon, he expressed interest. \u201cI went right to Stephen, and I said, \u2018Hey man, what about Ebon?\u2019 It was an absolute no-brainer,\u201d Bernthal says. Bernthal tells me that Guirgis\u2019s take on Dog Day Afternoon deviates from the film in key ways, such as fleshing out some of the more minor characters, including the bank staff, and going deeper on Sonny and Sal\u2019s dynamic. The two actors spent \u201cforever\u201d talking about their characters before rehearsals began. Bernthal describes his co-star as \u201ccompletely unpredictable. You never know what he\u2019s going to do, and I think the greatest among us have that quality.\u201d<\/p>\n The rehearsal process for Dog Day Afternoon is a welcome change of pace for Bernthal from his work in movies and TV. \u201cWe\u2019re getting a lot done. It\u2019s very hard. But we got right up from the beginning and started attacking it. There hasn\u2019t been much pondering and sitting around,\u201d he says. \u201cThe reason why I wanted to get back into the theater, more than anything else, is how much I craved being in rehearsal rooms.\u201d He relishes the process, compared to the arduous stop-and-start shoot days he\u2019s used to. On a film or TV set, \u201cI load myself with rituals. You\u2019ve got to create these sacred spaces to remove yourself. You\u2019ve got to find some corner to rehearse in, or take a walk, or listen to a song, to get in it and stay in it.\u201d In theater, however, he\u2019s able to ease in and out of character in a more balanced way, thanks to the daily nine-to-six rehearsal schedule. \u201cYou could ask me in a couple of weeks and maybe I\u2019ve changed my mind, but at this moment, what is so comforting is that we have this allotted period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite his performing a range of roles from William Shakespeare to David Auburn, Bernthal is only now doing Broadway with Dog Day Afternoon. He\u2019s thrilled, and happy, and humbled, but also scared, and he\u2019s tapping into that emotional energy as he rehearses the part of this doomed romantic bank robber. \u201cI\u202fwould like to say I turn it off when I leave, but I don\u2019t, and I am not really interested in that. I think Sonny\u2019s terrified. He\u2019s desperate and finding his way. And that\u2019s exactly where Jon is right now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Photo: Balazs Gardi for New York Magazine\n <\/p>\n Dog Day Afternoon is in previews March 10 at the August Wilson Theatre.<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now<\/a>![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6a1ff6126a9d7dc9a00e2e7195d821f385-jon-bernthal-balazs-gardi-1.rhorizontal.w900.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Balazs Gardi for New York Magazine\n <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1620fd464fbbab00da77eed4d07cf8f7f1-jon-bernthal-balazs-gardi-2.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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