Paul Bettany Q&A

The British actor discusses playing a bank robber in 'Firewall' and mad monk Silas in 'The Da Vinci Code'.

Mar 30 2006

Paul Bettany burst onto cinema screens playing the psychopathic lead in Paul McGuigan's 'Gangster No.1'. He has since starred in 'A Knight's Tale', 'A Beautiful Mind' and 'Wimbledon', while this year he will be seen playing bad guys in 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Firewall', which is out on Friday. Chris Tilly caught up with him to discuss technology, mad monks and punching Indiana Jones.

To what extent is the technology that we see in 'Firewall' real? Like when Harrison Ford's character uses the insides of a fax machine to take data from a computer?

You're going to speak to [director] Richard Loncraine and he's the one you should really address those questions to because he is incredibly savvy and obsessed with technology. But absolutely, it captures images and then you have to have a program that converts those images into data, very much like you can get a card reader where you can get a business card and rather than having to put into your computer, you can just put it into the thing and it reads the words on the paper and puts the word into you computer. It's a very similar thing.

Is it true that you punched Harrison Ford for real during the film?

What really happened was he was wearing a pad, I had to elbow him in the stomach and he wanted to feel the hit a little. And you know, what you do is you pull your punch, but I let it land a little bit and he went 'can I just feel it a little bit more?' So I did and then he asked for a little bit more, and then finally I really wound up on him and just let one rip and he went (shouts) 'that's it!' And that was slightly humiliating, but then, you know, he's Indiana Jones.

Is it nice getting to punch Indiana Jones? Is that like a boyhood dream?

Ummmm, I don't know. That would mean that I had some sort of plan and I err… Listen, there's a lot of very unimaginative people who go, 'oh, he just did that' and they offer you another job that's exactly the same and what will you do; say no? It's been easy. I didn't suddenly get offered endless doctor roles after I did 'Master and Commander' or anything like that you know? And to be honest, I've never thought, 'in order to move myself into this market I need to do a romantic comedy' or, 'now I've done a romantic comedy I don't want to just be thought of as some sort of blonde lightweight'. I simply don't have a plan.

So it's an accident that you're playing back-to-back baddies in 'Firewall' and 'The Da Vinci Code'?

There was no plan. I was a couple of days away from finishing 'Firewall', and then Ron Howard rang up and said 'do you want to be the assassin in 'The Da Vinci Code'?' Clearly it is playing a bad guy straight after playing a bad guy but if Ron Howard rings you up and offers you that role in an adaptation of 'The Da Vinci Code'?', which has sold 50 million copies, and then you say no, it's probably time to get on a plane and go home. I like playing characters like that – what's nice about it is they're a long way away from me. Like in 'Master and Commander', I played a doctor with incredible personal resources and I don't have those. If only. So I loved playing him, because he was a long way away from me, you know?

With 'The Da Vinci Code' did you feel any additional pressure playing a character that so many people know and have pre-conceived notions of from the book?

I didn't feel any; no more than usual. 'The Da Vinci Code' was extraordinary; I had an amazing time making that film. I know Ron, and I know Akiva Goldsman the writer and so I would come into work, and you know the nature of the part that I play, I tend to be on my own quite a bit, so I would come in and there'd be friends and a very modest crew, and it felt like a small independent movie. It felt very intimate and heartfelt. I'm beginning to sense that that's not the spirit in which it's going to be released but that's certainly how it felt making it. Ron's a great actor's director, he absolutely knows how to talk to actors. He picks great takes, you know I've seen it, because I've worked with him before, I know that he picks great takes. I've been on set when things have been acted and seen how he puts them together and he's a very, very clever man, so you feel safe.

Is it nice when directors like Richard Loncraine and Ron Howard want to work with you again?

That is nice. I was incredibly flattered with Ron because it was such a different job to what I did for him last time in 'A Beautiful Mind', where I was a lounge lizard and sort of the comic relief of the piece. So I'm very flattered that he came to me for such a dark part. I felt from the get go that he had faith in me, which is maybe his trick. He's amazing.

What are you up to next?

I'm going to go and do a small film in England called 'There for Me' with a friend. A friend wrote it, and will be in it and I'm going to go and do a couple of weeks on it, and then I'm hoping to work, maybe at the end of this year, but I want to find something that's really going to float my boat as I believe they say.

Finally, what are some of your favourite films?

All sorts of films. I can't tell you how many times I have seen 'The Incredibles' because I have children. And I love 'Monsters, Inc.', I love 'Battleship Potemkin', I love 'Brief Encounter', which I think is one of the greatest movies ever made, I love 'Raging Bull', I thought that 'Wedding Crashers' was incredibly funny and I think that there's… when I go out to eat, I don't just eat at a Chinese restaurant every night, you know? I like all different kinds of films, because I think there's room for everything isn't there? Otherwise life would be fucking dull.

'Firewall' is out tomorrow. To read our Harrison Ford interview, click here.

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