Jon Bernthal Reveals 13-Year-Long Rivalry With MCU Costar Tom Holland & Who’s Winning

Jon Bernthal has opened up about his long-running friendly rivalry with Tom Holland. The actor recently looked back on one memorable contest between them and revealed who he believes still has the edge.

Jon Bernthal recalls facing Tom Holland at 17 and settles their long-running rivalry

Jon Bernthal recently appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, where he discussed working with Tom Holland on The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, among other topics. During the conversation, Bernthal recalled a friendly match against Holland, which he said he won.

Praising Holland, The Punisher star said, “He is an unbelievable athlete. He can run up walls, he can do flips, he can do all kinds of things. And it’s enormously impressive. However, when it comes to sport-by-sport, there’s no comparison.” Although he admitted that the Spider-Man actor excels at archery, he jokingly recalled a soccer match between them.

“For the record, we did play in a sort of international soccer match, and soccer is not a game that I play. When he was 17 years old, he and a Frenchman played me and an Irishman, and we beat them soundly. So I just wanna point that out,” Bernthal said.

Bernthal and Holland’s friendship dates back to their work on Pilgrimage, which was released in 2017. However, their friendship is built on mutual respect. Bernthal recalled how they helped each other prepare audition tapes for The Punisher and Spider-Man: Homecoming, respectively. He acknowledged, “He was 17 years old. We were in Ireland making a film and we did each other’s audition tapes.”

Jon Bernthal and Tom Holland will be seen together in two big films this July. They first appear together in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, where Bernthal plays King Menelaus of Sparta, and Holland plays Telemachus. Then, later this month, in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Holland reprises his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Bernthal returns as Frank Castle/The Punisher.