Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettanyis an English actor. He first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he appeared in the British film Gangster No. 1, and director Brian Helgeland's film A Knight's Tale. He has gone on to appear in a wide variety of films, including A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Dogville, Wimbledon, and the adaptation of the novel The Da Vinci Code. He is also known for his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth27 May 1971
CityLondon, England
Half of NYC's homeless populations are families.Homeless people have been ignored for too long. I'll just say this: If you are a family on the brink of eviction you are 80% less likely to get evicted if you have legal counsel. However, there is no right to legal counsel in housing court.It would cost the city $12,500 to grant that family legal counsel. Meanwhile, the average stay for a homeless family in a shelter once they have been evicted cost the city $45,000. So not only does it seem like the right thing to do morally, it's also the right thing to do fiscally.
I wanted to know as the director how the actors wanted to tell this story I wanted to know what they thought.
I never really took into account the number of homeless families. As a kid, we used to feed the hungry at my church every other Saturday, and one day this kid from my school was there. Somewhere between that moment of realization and appreciation for what my Dad sacrificed for us to have, and me becoming "Anthony Mackie" I lost it. This movie [Shelter] really made me realize that, and it was very humbling and very sickening to see that within myself.
In a world of increasing grey areas, we are becoming more and more entrenched in black and white positions.
I have no interest in movies that take you somewhere dark and leave you there, for no reason.
I have an interest in giving people a cathartic experience, and making them look at homeless people differently, and making them question how they judge people, in general.
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.
In the old days when I first was coming up, you would turn up on set in the morning with your coffee, script, and hangover and you would figure out what you were going to do with the day and how you were going to play the scenes. You would rehearse and then invite the crew in to watch the actors go through the scenes. The actors would go away to makeup and costume and the director and the DP would work out how they were going to cover what the actors had just done.
I come down as an actor and my marks are already laid out on the floor - somebody else organized what I'm going to do. I think, why am I here? And why I'm here is to express the words with some sort of vague emotion and make them seem real. I wanted to go back to how it was before.
I do feel that scripts get developed now to a point where they're sort of actor-proof. If the actor is not very good, the narrative still survives because it's all in the dialogue. Not to say there aren't great performances in English-language films, because there are every year, but the 1970s were awash with great performances, and I was wondering whether it had to do with the amount of space and the amount of responsibility given to the actors.