Kevin Nash is a professional wrestler with a long and varied career. He began his high-profile career in the WWF as a character named Diesel, aka Big Daddy Cool, before co-founding the nWo faction with Hulk Hogan and going by his real name. Nash began acting in films in 1991, appearing as the mutated Super Shredder in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.” He also appeared in all three “Magic Mike” movies, the first “John Wick” and Channing Tatum’s “Dog” vehicle. In “The Punisher”, he is a Russian assassin, simply called 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 thrown through walls and the apartment is completely destroyed by violence. The Punisher is out of his league against an outsized fighter like the Russian. Jane mentioned in her interview that one of the days of filming he grabbed a prop butterfly knife…only learning too late that it wasn’t a prop knife. Jane remembers well:

“It was a bad day. I gotta tell you, when I was swinging around and grabbing the propeller knife, and there it is, and I plunge it into his chest…and it stabs him, and it goes in. And I “I look at the knife, I look at it. Kevin, he’s just looking at me, and there’s a knife sticking out of his chest… Yeah, that was tough. And you know what made it worse? He was so nice about it. You’re like, ‘Oh my god, this guy is going to knock me across the room.’ Just by reflex. He just sat there, looked at the knife, looked at me and shook his head.”