Ben Barnes, best known for playing the suave-on-the-surface-manipulative-underneath criminal Jigsaw in Netflix’s Marvel series The Punisher, nearly returned to the comic landscape in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. During a live Q&A with Rotten Tomatoes, Barnes explained how he almost starred opposite Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie in the critically-acclaimed Disney+ series. Unfortunately, filming for Shadow and Bone was about to start when the opportunity fell in his lap.
Barnes shared, “Kari Skogland, who's directing every episode of Falcon and Winter Soldier, directed every episode of a miniseries I did called Sons of Liberty where I played Sam Adams... And she actually messaged me saying she was doing Winter Soldier and that there might be a character for me in it. And I was just about to do Shadow and Bone so I didn't even know what it might be, and I still don't know really…”
Though it’s highly unlikely that Barnes would have reprised his role from The Punisher — as Disney has been hesitant to mix former Netflix properties with their own — it’s easy to imagine Barnes as one of Karli Morgenthau’s (Erin Kellyman) insurrectionist Flag Smashers.
Unfortunately, you won’t catch Barnes in the series finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. However, be sure to tune in to Netflix on April 23 to binge all eight episodes of Shadow and Bone, a fantasy tale based on Leigh Bardugo’s novel of the same name. Barnes plays primary character General Kirigan in the soon-to-be-released YA series.