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Paul Bettany talks about working with Russell Crowe | paulb_l
RUSSELL TERROR? Bettany gave Crowe high marks for modesty in his post-Oscar days on the set of ''A Beautiful Mind''
Paul Bettany: Chris Delmas/Zuma Press

All About

A Beautiful Mind

Not long ago ''A Knight's Tale'''s Paul Bettany had trouble landing meaty parts in Hollywood. Why? ''Because I'm British and not Rupert Everett,'' he tells EW.com. But now that he's working alongside Russell Crowe on the upcoming Ron Howard-directed drama ''A Beautiful Mind,'' that's likely to change. Indeed, ''Mind'' is just one of two serious gigs the lanky London born actor, 30, landed hot off his critically praised role as a quick-witted, gambling-addicted Geoffrey Chaucer in ''A Knight's Tale.'' He'll also appear opposite Willem Dafoe in the upcoming English thriller ''Morality Play.''

We caught up with Bettany while he was filming ''Mind'' in New York City, and asked him what it's like working with Hollywood's thespian elite.

You began filming ''A Beautiful Mind'' just as ''Gladiator'' and Crowe won their Academy Awards. Did that excitement affect production at all?
No, he won the Oscar and came right back to work. Whereas I would have been running around naked going, ''I've got an Oscar! I've got an Oscar!'' He really wasn't, he was just charming and humble about it.

How did you get the part, and who do you play?
I owe Brian Helgeland, [''A Knight's Tale'''s writer/director] everything. Brian took Ron Howard at gunpoint into the screening room and showed him ''A Knight's Tale.'' Russell Crowe plays John Nash, a Princeton mathematician who won the Nobel Prize for Economics and had a very troubled, disturbed life. I play his best friend, an English major, who nurtures him.

You'll get to use your native accent. How will the movie explain it?
Right, I'm an English person studying English in America. My parents are diplomats or something. That's the conceit. The real reason is that if I played an American, they'd have to justify using an English actor.

Do you find that Hollywood studios want to typecast British actors?
Back in England I play gangsters, poets, anything. But I think there's a tendency in American films for English people to only play baddies. I think it's because of the whole War of Independence thing, really. The same way that French people play good lovers in American films. Because of the debt of gratitude to Lafayette.

The whole ''Knight's Tale'' cast, including Heath Ledger, is rumored to be reuniting for Brian Helgeland's next movie, which is...
An adaptation of ''Moby Dick,'' with me playing Ahab! If the studio will allow us to make it. Right now they're saying that it's ''too dark.'' I'm saying, ''It's probably the greatest piece of American literature ever written -- I think we should make a film out of it!'' It's very unpatriotic of them.


Posted Jun 06, 2001 | Order Article Reprints