In the Boxing Day BBC drama A Very British Scandal, he plays the Duke of Argyll opposite Claire Foy’s Duchess, whose notorious divorce trial made sensationalist headlines in the Sixties. Vision was initially a voice role in 2008’s Iron Man before Bettany parlayed it into an Emmy-nominated performance in the studio’s first TV series, WandaVision, this year.īut sweet, kind-hearted Vision is the exception on Bettany’s CV and his next role is “a bit of a palate cleanser”, he says. More recently, though, he has split from scripture to play a character that does away with eyebrows altogether, caked as they are in layers of red paint when he is portraying a lovable Marvel android. A year later, A Knight’s Tale and A Beautiful Mind introduced the Harlesden-born actor to international audiences. A lead part in the 2000 British film Gangster No 1 was the diving board for Bettany’s plunge into Hollywood. It felt very revealing and I didn’t like it.” He soon realised that with acting, there was a desirable buffer between himself and the truth, and enrolled in drama school. “But I hated singing my own songs in front of people. “You just knew he was a star.” On the other hand, he says half-laughing, custard-coloured beanie on his head, “I’m still filled with absolute self-doubt all the time.”īettany didn’t actually set out to become an actor.
“So much has been spoken about Heath’s darkness but I only saw this person who was so full of light and had this confidence in himself that was magnetic but never felt obnoxious,” he recalls, ruefully. Yet Bettany says this with so much of that jammy English charm that it’s hard to truly believe him. The actor insists that he has always lacked self-belief compared to, say, his late A Knight’s Tale co-star Heath Ledger, who possessed it in such joyful abundance. Some actors know they’re destined for great things, but Paul Bettany was never so sure.
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