Kevin Nash is a professional wrestler with a long and varied career. He started his high-profile WWF career as a character named Diesel, a.k.a. Big Daddy Cool, before co-founding the nWo faction with Hulk Hogan and going by his real name. Nash began acting in movies in 1991, appearing as the mutated Super Shredded in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.” He has also appeared in the three “Magic Mike” movies, the first “John Wick,” and the Channing Tatum vehicle “Dog.” In “The Punisher,” he is a Russian assassin, called simply The Russian, hired to break into the Punisher’s apartment and kill him.
The fight between Jane and Nash is a highlight of the film, as Jane is hurled through walls, and the apartment is utterly destroyed by the violence. The Punisher is out of his league against an outsize fighter like the Russian. Jane mentioned in his interview that on one of the days of filming, he grabbed a prop butterfly knife … only learning too late that it wasn’t a prop knife. Jane recalled well:
“That was a bad day. I gotta tell you, when I was swinging around, and grabbing the prop knife, and he’s there, and I plunge it into his chest … and it stabs him, and it goes in. And I’m looking at the knife, I’m looking at him. Kevin, he’s just looking down at me, and there’s a knife sticking out of his chest … Yeah, that was rough. And you know what made it worse? He was so nice about it. You’re like, ‘Oh my god, this guy’s going to knock me across the room.’ Just out of a reflex. He just sat there, looked at the knife, looked at me, and shook his head.”
