When Blade lines up a bazooka that once belonged to the Punisher in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Deadpool rightfully asks, “Which Punisher? There’s been like five of them.” It’s certainly true that the Punisher is one of the most recast Marvel characters, from Dolph Lundgren’s 1989 Punisher to the current Punisher, played by Jon Bernthal. But perhaps the most underrated Punisher is the one played by Thomas Jane in the 2004 movie, which features an unforgettable fight scene between the Punisher and the Russian, played by Kevin Nash.
Calling it a “fight scene” is generous. For the most part, it’s just the Punisher getting bounced around the room (and through several walls and doors) by Nash’s comically overpowered slab of pure Russian muscle. There’s a moment in the fight where the Punisher stabs the Russian in the chest only for the giant to not even flinch, which actually happened for real due to the prop butterfly knife being mistakenly swapped for a real one.
All-in-all, it’s a pretty legendary showdown. The Russian variant played by veteran stunt performer Billy Clements in “Deadpool & Wolverine” doesn’t get showcased to the same extent, but he does get to go toe-to-toe with Channing Tatum’s Gambit as he strives to “makeanameformyselfere.”
The topic of the new Russian recently came up on Kevin Nash’s Kliq THIS podcast. Upon seeing a picture of Clements in the role Nash commented, “That looks nothing like the character I played. That looks nothing like the Russian. It looks like they gave somebody a favor.” When co-host Sean Oliver suggested that Marvel “went in a different direction” by not inviting Nash back, Nash dismissed the idea that he was “trolling for movie roles” at 65 years old. Still, his comments didn’t sit well with Clements.
Playing the Russian was an ‘honor’ for Billy Clements
Before we get into the beef, it’s worth noting that Nash’s comments weren’t specifically directed at Clements, since Sean Oliver mistakenly identifies the Russian’s actor as Canadian wrestler Kevin Owens. Nonetheless, Clements — a prolific stunt performer whose previous credits include “Dune: Part Two,” “Tenet,” and “Fast X” — understandably took issue with Nash’s “favor” comment and responded in a video posted to Instagram.
The British actor (who also appeared in the movie as the driver of Pyro’s “Mad Max”-esque Void vehicle) began by praising Nash’s take on the Russian as “Amazing … The way you played it, I thought, was brilliant. I’ve seen it 100 times.” As for his own version of the character looking different, with brown hair and a beard instead of Nash’s more comics-accurate peroxide blond ‘do, he pointed out that “There’s lots of different Wolverines in there. My character’s obviously a different variant [of the Russian].” Moving on to why the dismissive comments had hit him so hard, Clements explained:
“I really worked hard to get that role, you know. Trained seven years, started from an extra at the bottom of the pile. Doing everything I can, audition after audition after audition, just trying the best to get where I could. To finally get that role was an honor. You know, it meant so much to me, everything in the world. I couldn’t believe I was a genuine Marvel character.”
He also revealed that he spent three months learning Russian and gained 32 lbs in order to get as close to the comic book character’s look as possible.
While the Russian comes off the worse for wear in his fight with Gambit (really, that exploding bo-staff is just cheating), Clements could always return somewhere down the line as another variant in the same mold. The Marvel multiverse is full of infinite possibilities!
