Born Again’s Wilson Bethel Breaks Down Bullseye’s Most Unhinged Episode Yet

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again, Season 2, Episode 4

In Daredevil: Born Again Season 2’s fourth episode, “Gloves Off,” the Disney+ series does something especially unnerving with the sharpshooting antagonist, Bullseye, played strikingly by Wilson Bethel. For a moment, it lets him look almost ordinary before reminding us exactly who he is in the confines of a cozy and charming diner. While the episode opens up on Dex’s usual routines filled with scenes of helping an elderly neighbor, listening to music, and heading calmly to a diner for a milkshake, that controlled ease moves soon stretches into outright carnage.

By the time the hour barrels into its final stretch, with Charlie Cox’s Daredevil tracing Bullseye’s steps from the diner to the church, Buck (Arty Froushan) killing Christofi (Yorgos Karamihos), and Fisk’s (Vincent D’Onofrio) boxing-match trap collapsing into disaster for Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer), the episode has narrowed into something very specific: a portrait of a man who genuinely believes he’s balancing the scales.

And that’s the part Bethel keeps coming back to when we speak to him for Daredevil: Born Again’s mid-season episode. In a call with the actor while making lasagna for his family, Bethel says this season’s Bullseye has “a bit of a lightness about him” because he feels like he’s on “this righteous mission to redeem himself,” which gives him an “almost like a joy to him.” As he puts it, you can see that all through the diner sequence, where Dex lures the Anti-Vigilante Task Force into a trap at the diner under the guise of The Punisher, kills the officers he sees as the threat, and then calmly tells the civilians not to worry because he’s “one of the good guys.”

Bethel tells Collider that the diner scene is Bullseye “just living his best life,” and that’s what makes Episode 4 hit so hard. In our spoiler-filled conversation, the actor breaks down Bullseye’s twisted sense of righteousness, why Dex’s promise to Matt that he wants to do “one good thing” is sincere, and how Episode 4 turns him into something even more chillingly precise than before.

Bethel Explains Why Bullseye Has “a Lot of Reasons” To Hate the Fisks

The actor says Bullseye’s long, messy history with Fisk and Vanessa fuels the tension behind Episode 4’s climax.

Image via Disney+, Marvel Studios

COLLIDER: Coming off of Episode 4, that attack on Vanessa takes on a different meaning once we learn from the first season that she’s behind Foggy’s murder. Did you approach Bullseye’s injuring her as a retaliation, or is he too detached for that to really register personally?

BETHEL: Look, at this point, the relationship with the Fisks, plural, is extremely complicated for ol’ Poindexter. So, yeah, I think he’s got a lot of reasons to hate them individually and collectively. At this point, one of the amazing things about getting to have done this character, now going into my fourth season with him, is that there’s just so much amazing backstory I get to play with, in terms of motivation for every scene. Obviously, the writers throughout these seasons have never shied away from giving Bullseye a really rich backstory, so I bring that into every scene we do. Of course, going into that scene at the boxing match, it was heavy in so many ways, but yeah, I think there’s a lot of sense of the history of these characters at play, for sure.

This season, I do feel he is less chaotic and more precise, and also colder. Was that a conscious shift to make him feel a little bit more like a controlled weapon? Because, as you said, there’s a lot to dig into with his character coming into your fourth season.

BETHEL: Yeah, for sure. One of the things that I think is really special and fun and funny and just wild about this season is this is a very different Bullseye than we’ve ever seen before — very different Dex than we’ve seen before — because he has a bit of a lightness about him, because he feels like he’s on this righteous mission to redeem himself. He has a really clear idea in his mind that he is balancing the scales, and so that gives him almost this lightness, almost like a joy to him. So, when you get to see him in a scene like that diner scene, to me, that’s like Bullseye just living his best life. You know what I mean? Which also, fortunately, is, I think, really fun to watch when you have an insanely psychotic guy who can throw anything and kill you with it, and he’s also feeling really happy and joyful and just wants to dance. That’s the scene you get.

Bullseye’s Diner Massacre Was Built Like a Huge Action Movie Set Piece

The actor explains how Episode 4’s diner sequence came together and why Bullseye sees himself as the hero.

I will say that the scene you come in is so great. It feels so iconic, like we’re going to look back at this as one of the most iconic scenes from the franchise. How long did it take to build that whole sequence? I’ve seen behind the scenes, and you guys take a whole day sometimes for a couple of scenes.

BETHEL: For starters, weeks go into the preparation from the earliest conversations around, conceptually, what a scene is, in terms of the action and stuff, to Phil Silvera and his team working out the initial beats. Then they bring me in so we can have a conversation about deepening it and what beats are missing. Then they go back to their drawing board, add pieces, and present that to the producers. It’s a long process. Then they shoot what they call a previs, basically like a pre-visualization of the entire scene, which is essentially shot on an iPhone, but it gives you a really good sense of what these action scenes look like.

Now, all that said, you still have to shoot the scene, and if we weren’t doing this scene, that diner scene, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just about anywhere else, that could take up to two weeks of shooting to do a scene that complicated with that many shots. There were 80 separate shots in that scene, and we did it in a day. If you’re a filmhead and you watch a scene like that, to know that that was done in a day, I really, genuinely think it is certainly one of the greatest film feats I’ve ever been part of. I do think it’s just extraordinary. So yeah, that was one day of shooting. A very exhausting, very fun day.

It’s an incredible sequence. My sister and I are at the edge of our seats watching that, because it’s just so much fun. We know Poindexter, Bullseye, is not a good guy; he’s sort of a villain, but in that sense, you do root for him. You really do. But he sets up the situation by blaming the Punisher, and then he wipes the threats out calmly. He says he’s one of the good guys, which is so interesting. Did you approach that as him constructing a scenario where he gets to define himself as the hero?

BETHEL: I think that’s very much the case. I think he really feels like he is doing God’s work right now, and so that gives him a sense of purpose, and it sort of imbues him with this righteousness, which I think is, again, just amazing coming from somebody who is obviously an extensive mass murderer.

There is that real Punisher versus Bullseye energy in that scene, and I feel like people expect Punisher to come by. You guys do have a rivalry in the comics. Were you thinking about that dynamic at all, especially knowing fans would want to see more of that with the two of them?

BETHEL: It would be a dream for me to get to shoot a Punisher-Bullseye sequence. Hopefully, we do get to do that someday. I think that would be fucking bananas. I think it would be so much fun. Obviously, I knew that that wasn’t in the cards for this season, but my fingers are extremely crossed for that in the future.

Bullseye’s Most Chilling Episode 4 Line Was Completely Sincere

The actor adds how Bullseye’s damaged inner child shapes how he sees guilt, redemption, and his scenes with Matt.

Image via Disney+

So there is a scene in Episode 4 when he tells Matt he wants to do one good thing, and it sounds so sincere. Do you think Bullseye actually believes that, or is it just something that he’s justifying himself because of everything?

BETHEL: No, he 100% believes that. One of the beautiful things about the Dex character is that there’s an element of him that is really like a wounded child. There’s a part of him that hasn’t matured past that stage of him being this wounded little kid, and that super simplistic mentality that he brings, it’s like a six-year-old. “Oh, if I just paint mommy a nice picture, it’ll change the fact that I smeared my shit all over the wall,” or whatever I just did. [Laughs] It doesn’t work like that, but in Dex’s mind, it really does. So, no, that’s 100% where his head is at. There’s nothing disingenuous about that.

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The scenes you have with Charlie [Cox] this season are amazing. I love seeing that because you both have great chemistry. You also have this push and pull, which is incredible. What was something that you really loved having to work with in this season that you didn’t get to do before?

BETHEL: I always love working with Charlie. Any time we’re on screen together, I think there is some sort of extra-special something. The scenes in Episode 5, where we’re in the church, and those things where we get to have these really thoughtful conversations, in a weird way, and certainly in a very heightened context, I thought were really cool. In general, I think that episode is a beautiful episode and a really complex one. Getting Bullseye-Daredevil morality, the two sides of the morality coin, and then talking about it in very frank terms, I think, is really special. So, I love getting to do those scenes.

Bethel Explains Bullseye’s “Apex Predator” Physicality in Daredevil: Born Again

Bethel says Dex moves with the confidence of a lion, giving Bullseye a distinct swagger and menace this season.

Your EP, Sana [Amanat], actually mentioned to us how much thought went into Bullseye’s movement this season. How did you approach his physicality, making him feel so distinct from Daredevil and Punisher? Because there is a different method of fighting for each of them, too.

BETHEL: Something that I love about working on this show, and specifically with this character, is how much physical acting there is with this character. Obviously, part of that is action sequences, which, of course, are bananas and super fun, but there’s also a way that this character, his physicality, has evolved from when we first met him in the Netflix series to now, which is truly one of the most fun parts of this character that I get to play. The way that I think about it in my head is that this guy really feels to me like an apex predator in a way. His skill set is so lethal, and he knows it, that he can sort of walk through the world like he’s the lion and it’s his savannah. That’s something that I definitely try to embody. He just knows that these people are beneath him in a way, and it just gives him a swag. It just gives him this really fun, menacing aura that, hopefully, plays really well on screen. It’s certainly something I love to play with as an actor. I think it’s really fun.

Daredevil: Born Again streams Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on Disney+.