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Off camera, the two weren't particularly chummy, but that was more a geographic than a personality issue. While in Mexico shooting, Bettany rented a house far from the rest of the cast and crew to capture the experience of Dr. Maturin, who, as the ship's physician, was often removed from the sailors' camaraderie. ''He didn't join in the local pub evening we had every Friday,'' says Weir. ''He wasn't a 'mate.' He had a certain stature when he came in Monday morning.'' Bettany confesses that the consequence of his self-exile was that ''I was so f -- -ing lonely that by the time I got into work I wanted to talk to everybody.''

Bettany shies from placing great import on his acting technique, less because it comes from a dark, cloaked part of him than because he doesn't see why, for example, the fact that he studied oceanography and surgery, and even learned the cello, to play Dr. Maturin should be interesting to others. ''Acting's a bit like sex,'' he says. ''It's fun to do, but it's a bit embarrassing to have to discuss afterwards.'' Plus, he says, ''the cerebral stuff is impossible to talk about, because little thoughts [about your role] come to you maybe when you're having a poo.''

It's not the most glamorous of explanations, but Bettany doesn't covet the glamorous life. Living in Brooklyn (and London), he and Connelly avoid klieg lights and paparazzi, for which he has no patience. He was recently in L.A., waiting in an E! greenroom to be interviewed, when he saw ''Celebrities Uncensored,'' the network's star-stalking show, playing on a monitor. When thanked for coming, he asked a producer, ''Does anybody ever come back?''

Bettany is happily preparing to hand press duties off to Connelly, whose ''House of Sand and Fog'' opens wide Dec. 26. ''I'll be her junket bitch,'' he says. In January she starts filming the drama ''Dark Water'' with ''Central Station'' director Walter Salles; the couple has decided that only one of them at a time will work, to keep the family together, so he will morph from junket bitch to ''set bitch.'' And he's taking that role seriously: Yelling so Connelly can hear him, he proudly proclaims, ''I've taken lactating lessons. I sit with pumps.''

''He says if something bad happens to the mother, men can start lactating,'' she retorts. ''So I'm always looking over my shoulder.''

Bettany seems thrilled to just spend time with Stellan (named after his close friend, actor Stellan Skarsgard). ''I'm not feeling particularly desperate to go out and work,'' he says. ''I'd like to sit and watch my toenails grow for a while.'' So if E! sends paparazzi out for ''Celebrity Toenails Uncensored,'' they know where to find him.

Posted Dec 05, 2003 | Published in issue #740 Dec 05, 2003 | Order Article Reprints

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