Paul Bettany: Margin Call has reignited my love of film-making

By Andrew Williams
Paul Bettany, star of The Da Vinci Code and A Beautiful Mind, spills the beans on new film Margin Call, why he 'forgets' he was in Iron Man and what it was like to drop out of school at 16 to become a busker.

What’s your new film, Margin Call, all about?

It’s about the financial crisis of 2008. It takes place in a fictional firm but it is based on facts. The writer/director JC Chandor’s father worked at Merrill Lynch for 40 years and Chandor grew up on a trading floor, so he knows more about the financial world than any other film director. It was good news for me because the only thing I knew about the financial world was that I had a bank account.
You’ve said this has rekindled your love of film-making – in what way?

Well-written scripts don’t come up that often. We shot it in 17 days in New York. It wasn’t my turn to work. My wife, actress Jennifer Connelly, was working and I was looking after the kids but it was well written and Kevin Spacey was attached. I turned up on the first day and there was great camaraderie on set. We shot mostly at night and my kids slept on an inflatable mattress in an office. They slept through the night while I’d work and we’d go to the park in the morning. There was more from it than financial remuneration. I thought: ‘That’s the end of me making movies I don’t care about.’

Why were you disillusioned with film-making?

I never thought of it as a source of income before I had kids. Then my focus became my kids and I wanted to make a bunch of money really quickly so I could stay at home with them. I’d always wanted to be a father. I’m not moaning – I was able to earn enough money to take 18 months off. It was great. I made a couple of films and remembered there’s more to receive from this job than money. I want to make things I believe in.
Why did you want to become an actor?

American movies of the 1970s such as Five Easy Pieces, Raging Bull, The Conversation – they’re the movies I grew up loving and I wanted to emulate those people.
Your parents had been actors – was that an influence?

They had been actors but by the time they had me my dad was a teacher and my mum was a secretary. I don’t remember them having an opinion about me becoming an actor. I dropped out of school at 16 and became a busker – they were happy I’d decided to do something with my life. They’d have been like: ‘Thank God, it’s the greatest idea you’ve ever had’ about anything.
What roles had the biggest impact on your career?

Gangster Number One altered everything for me in Britain and A Knight’s Tale changed things in America. I don’t know. I pay someone else ten per cent to think about these things. Jobs are often long things. I spent eight months doing Master And Commander so it’s hard to separate that experience from the film. You might be changed by making a film no one ever sees. I don’t think about what impact a film’s had on my life after it came out.

How’s The Avengers going?

I have no input with that other than spending half an hour sitting in a studio doing the voice-over. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. I say the lines and they pay me money. I forgot I was in Iron Man. Someone said: ‘I loved you in Iron Man’. I said: ‘You’ve got me mixed up with someone else.’ I forgot I did the voice because it was only 30min in a recording studio laughing my arse off. I’ve got no idea what’s happening with The Avengers. They work out what bits need explaining with a voice-over and then give it to me.

Were you into superheroes as a child?

No. It was Dan Dare and The Eagle, which felt Victorian. It wasn’t my thing. I liked the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. I was dyslexic so wasn’t reading as a child and fell through every educational crack there is to fall through. Books happened later for me. I was your average bullied kid sitting in his room plotting revenge.
Have you ever been sacked?

Yes, from being a barman 15 minutes into my first shift when I was a teenager. A customer bought a huge round of drinks, said there was a kitty and walked off. He got rude and lairy. Then I hit him. Not particularly hard but the boss didn’t think it was a good business strategy and sacked me. He started me on a busy Friday night when it was full of drunks. He could have started me on a Monday.

What do you miss about Britain?

I’ve been in LA for ten years and last year I really started missing England. I’m hopefully making a couple of movies there this year, which I’m very glad about. I miss my friends and just the general Englishness of it. Maybe it’s the austerity measures reminding me of the 1970s. Maybe I’m nostalgic.