Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettanyis an English actor. He first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he appeared in the British film Gangster No. 1, and director Brian Helgeland's film A Knight's Tale. He has gone on to appear in a wide variety of films, including A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Dogville, Wimbledon, and the adaptation of the novel The Da Vinci Code. He is also known for his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth27 May 1971
CityLondon, England
There's something nice about being able to leave your sense of morality at the door when you come to work in the morning and just be cruel to people all day. It's quite fun. In a lot of my scenes I'm on my own and I would turn up for work and there'd be me and a crew and Ron Howard and it felt like a small, intimate, personal, independent movie. But I hear that's not what it's going to be.
There's no such thing as "for sure". That's the only sure thing I do know.
Listen. If we can't break the ice, how 'bout we drown it?
Yeah, I love history and I loved it as a kid.
The fact that in America bread lasts so long. You buy bread, and then it's bread forever - it's Forever Bread!
Businessmen lay off human beings from work, businessmen decide to make shirts in Indonesia and use 8-year-old children to do it in order to turn a profit, businessmen make really cold decisions every day. Businessmen run diamond mines. They walk around in the legitimate world. I try to play it more like that.
It's a big business there. I have heard of Indian films. I know the Indian film industry produces many films a year.
I tried to look for what I had in common with the character. He wants $100 million dollars. I wouldn't mind $100 million. I sort of held that in mind. Obviously, there are obstacles in my way.
Before the baby was born, I was making 2-3 films a year and I won't do that any more because I need to bring up a child so it's the slower journey.
I arrived last night, right in time for English Department cocktails. The tail belonged to a lovely young thing with a passion for D. H Lawrence
People have suggested that perhaps we are too affluent to be telling this story, which is amazing to me because then I wonder what story I am allowed to tell. Having been working with the homeless for the past years, I noticed lots of things about them, but one thing I really noticed was that they were probably too busy just getting though the day to make a film about themselves.
When I became a father acting sort of took the place of what I did in my free time and my children became the main focus. I play a lot and my children play. Both my sons - my daughter's still too young really - have surpassed me with their music skills, which is wildly irritating.
I was always waiting for the secret to be handed down to me. Ron Howard asked me what I was waiting for and I went, "Ron, I'm waiting to know the secret. I keep feeling there's some sort of secret that's going to passed on from a director." He went, "Oh no. There is none. You've just got to on and do it and make mistakes and figure it out."
I really like telling stories. When I was a kid, I wanted to write songs. In quite a fundamental, gratifying, childish way, I enjoy the doing of telling a story.