Paul Bettany

Paul Bettany

Paul Bettany voiced J.A.R.V.I.S. in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age of Ultron. He also portrayed Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.

Significant roles

• Prince William of Orange in Sharpe's Waterloo (1997)
• James Steerforth in David Copperfield (2000)
• Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight's Tale (2001)
• Charles in A Beautiful Mind (2001)
• Tom Edison in Dogville (2003)
• Dr. Stephen Maturin in Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
• Y in Euston Road (2004)
• Peter Colt in Wimbledon (2004)
• Bill Cox in Firewall (2006)
• Silas in The Da Vinci Code (2006)
• T. Ray Owens in The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
• Dustfinger in Inkheart (2008)
• Lord Melbourne in The Young Victoria (2009)
• Charles Darwin in Creation (2009)
• Michael in Legion (2010)
• Priest in Priest (2011)
• Joe Fairburn in Blood (2013)
• Max Waters in Transcendence (2014)
• Jock Strapp in Mortdecai (2015)
• Charlie Richardson in Legend (2015)
• Dryden Vos in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Quotes

• "I didn't know I was in a superhero movie, I made a movie with Jon Favreau before and he rung me up and said, 'Paul...' He rung me up and was really funny on the phone. I said, 'Yeah, alright.' I genuinely didn't know. I'm really naive, but it's the f**king truth."
• "I really didn't know what I was going in for because it was two hours in a recording booth, I went in and recorded with Jon Favreau, doing all the lines, recording them and went home and now I'm a f**king hero to my children. I haven't even seen it yet. I haven't had time because I've been working for 17 hours a day."
• On the Avengers: "Yes, I am involved in this project. Don't know when we will start though, usually they (guys at Marvel) call me, when they're almost finished with the movie, so we will see where this goes."
• "I get brought in right at the last moment, where if they've worked out that they have a clarity issue or whatever, they can always add it to my dialogue. I feel like a pirate. This is robbery. I walk in, I say some lines on a piece of paper for two hours, and then they give me a bag of money and I leave and I go about my day. I sort of feel guilty, because at least acting can be exhausting, with long hours...but I do nothing! And I've never seen one of them. It's not because of any snobbishness, it's just not my thing. I'm plagued by fanboys who love J.A.R.V.I.S.... They come up and I've got no idea what they're talking about. I've got no idea about Iron Man - I don't get sent the whole script."
• "Oh, he can do all sorts of things. But I'm not allowed to really talk about them and what we're going to do because there might be a Marvel agent in the room who will actually wrestle me to the ground and fire me."
• "It's very exciting for me, but everything's a double-edged sword because I was playing J.A.R.V.I.S. for years. My job was I would turn up at a recording studio for 45 minutes, do all my stuff, they would give me a huge bag of cash, and then I would go home. Now, it turns out they've found me out and they want me to actually, ya know, do something. It's not right."
• "It's still a secret. I think all will be revealed very shortly. It's a secret I've kept for about three years, which is really hard, especially with three kids. I'm contractually obliged not to talk about it. J.A.R.V.I.S. will be there and so will The Vision. But I simply can't tell you any more."
• "Yeah, I'll tell you the ending! No, a red dot appears on me whenever I start to talk about Marvel films. I can tell you that I've kept it secret for about three years, I've known that this would happen. I'm not about to give the game away right now because we've managed to keep really underwraps. There is only a few images out, but it's pretty grand."
• "It was enormous... They showed a portion of the footage, and I was just gobsmacked... All the Avengers were the same, including Samuel Jackson – and his whole modus operandi is ‘I’ve seen everything before, I’m the most chilled out, relaxed man and I’ve seen everything…’and he was as knocked out as anyone. It’s huge."
• "I look really different in real life. I’m red and android in the film. So I don’t know, hopefully that’ll help."
• "I love doing it. It’s really nice to have a balance in all this. To go from a movie I was making where we couldn’t afford two cameras, to a movie where there’s helicopters with cameras in. It was a lot of fun. I’ve been to Comic-con like 5 times, and I went this last time as part of the Avengers, and it was… just nuts. It was crazy, Those fans go CRAZY. And that was strange."
• "I’ve never been on a bigger set on my entire life than in The Avengers. One part seemed to be the corner of a town, with helicopter cameras, and drone cameras flying about. I just haven’t seen anything that big, so it was like being a kid on a film set again. This is the biggest thing Marvel have ever done. It was enormous. I remember, we were at Comic-con, and they showed a portion of the footage, and I was just gobsmacked. And I looked down the row and every one of the Avengers was the same."
• "That's the really great thing about the Marvel gig for me: I have never known if I have had a job six months out ever in my life. And now I know that they have plans and I can be even more judicious about the stuff that I do outside of that work. I can wait for the right thing and feel really attached to it."
• "I did a lot of research — and my research was watching all of the films. I realised they are so interlinked and I wanted to understand the universe I was in. So I did and it was a really amazing, fun experience — especially going from my tiny, 20-day movie with no money and no trailers to this behemoth film was just great. Everybody made me feel really at home and I have no bad stories — they are really funny people and really creative. I have never seen sets that big in my whole career. I have never seen set pieces like it — we were in a set that felt like a town."
• "When I was JARVIS I would turn up right at the end, I would work for two hours and they'd give me a big back of cash. It seemed impossible to beat. Now they want me to work for my money! It was great to finally be on set with these people you've been working with for 10 years but never actually met."
• "It was sort of this father-son scene between this purple android and Ultron. James was in a fractal suit which had headlights and cameras filming his face as he moved. All of it fell away and you're just left with an actor's eyes. He's really compelling - it just became a father-son moment."
• "I think it’s great that Marvel and Sony have worked this out. Because these films are made by fans and to see Spider-Man come to life in these movies, where he should be… is going to be great."
• "It was a lot of work! We all had a bit more fun. You know, there were more improvised jokes between me and Downey Jr., and me and Chris Evans, and it was a really loose atmosphere on-set. It was one really loose set, it was great! I would totally lie to you if it wasn’t, but I don’t have to lie. And we all get on. They’re all a really nice bunch of boys and girls. They’re all happy to be there. They’re being terribly well-paid, so they should be happy to be there. And work’s really creative and fun, you know? I got to be born on camera, you know, that’s unlikely to ever happen again."
• "And also, as an actor, the other part of it is knowing that you have work in a year’s time. I’ve never had that. Do Jarvis, you should do Jarvis. No, find somebody else. Oh, I … It’s the first time in my life that I’ve had the security of knowing that I’ve got a couple of movies to make…"
• "I was given comics. I also was looking to think about what could be edifying for me to learn. I took the opportunity—you see my character get born… something unlikely to ever happen to me again. He must be both omnipotent and yet totally naive at the same time. And experiencing the world in real time and his place in it. Is he going to be a force of good or a force of evil? It was really interesting, fun to play with, because he is dangerous, you do not know if he’s going to go one way or another. And I’m continuing that theme in Captain America 3."
• "It’s going to be a lot of fun. I think it’s really interesting, the way that a huge, epic superhero extravaganza is discussing a really interesting question, which is about people unilaterally going into other people’s countries and their intervention there. It’s actually an interesting thing to talk about in a massive forum like that."
• "What I love about my character is that there are so many places for him to go. I think he’s very interested in what it means to be human and what love is. The only way one can guarantee one’s loyalty is love. Loyalty is beyond logic, really. Logic doesn’t really provide for loyalty. If your logic changes suddenly and things not make sense, you can alter your allegiance, but love stops you from being able to do that."
• "I loved working with all three of them. The really great thing with a cast that big is that you have two directors. You can always get one of them to have a chat with about what’s coming up next, and that’s great. I’m really excited to see what they do with what we shot."
• "I think fans feel that [the movies are] in safe hands, and the reason they feel like they’re in safe hands is because the films are being made by fans and they remember what it is about these stories that connected with them, in the first place. That’s why they have heart."
• "The stronger you are, the more you invite challenge. Something has to rise to fill the vacuum."
• "It’s not the first day that’s a problem. It’s not really the second day that’s a problem. It’s not the third day. And then you’re waking up on the fourth day… By the time it’s the fifth day of being in it, for 12 hours or whatever, you’re waking up in the morning, and you’ve put your head on the pillow the night before, and you wake up and it’s the morning. ‘I gotta get back in the suit!’"
• "You really have to meditate. You have to meditate, and, frankly, I meditate on the long line of actors that would love to be in my position right now. You really remember how fortunate you are. But there is no getting away from the fact that it’s uncomfortable and challenging, in terms of keeping your inner peace."
• "I think he has a real connection to Scarlet Witch. They both have these new burgeoning powers that they don't understand, and they don't know how powerful they are, and that must be kind of scary. And i do think he's worried that they're both dangerous. So he feels this real connection with her. And she's a bit of depressive at the moment so he's just trying to cook for her."
• "What happened there is that his judgement was clouded there by real love and affection. And he responded in a quick and thoughtless way...i really love that the moral compass of the movie is this synthetic person who's trying to figure out what it means to be human. It's a neat idea, you know?"

Trivia

• Paul is married to actress Jennifer Connelly who voiced Karen in the film Spider-Man: Homecoming, a character similar to J.A.R.V.I.S., who Bettany voiced.