FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS
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JON: [introducing the guests] ...a genuine British film star. Don't worry - it's not Vinnie Jones. It's the star of The Da Vinci Code, Paul Bettany, ladies and gentlemen! [applause, Paul smiles and waves from backstage] The talented, the handsome, the personable... [Paul laughs and mugs] ...Paul Bettany. Now in the movie The Da Vinci Code, Paul stars as a hard-line Catholic albino monk hit-man. Careful, Paul. Typecasting. [introduces other guests]
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JON: Let's welcome our first guest on the program, shall we? Last week I said Sir Ian McKellen was the real star of The Da Vinci Code. Well, he's not here this week, so instead, please welcome the real star of The Da Vinci Code, Paul Bettany, ladies and gentlemen! [walks over to greet Paul, they both sit down] Mr. Paul Bettany, welcome back on the show. How lovely to see you.
PAUL: It's gorgeous to see you.
JON: Can I be honest? You look more manly than you used to look. I think you filled out a bit. You look better. You look more grown up. You look a bit like a more mature, handsome movie star. You used to look a bit like a puny, whey-faced boy, but now you've filled right out.
PAUL: Thank you very much!
JON: You look great.
PAUL: Well, I was at a gym for The Da Vinci Code, but then I gave it up 'cause gyms are boring.
JON: Why did you have to work out to play a monk in The Da Vinci Code? I would have thought you wearing a robe most of the time, you don't get seen. Why would you need to be muscular?
PAUL: There's a lot of naked flagellation just in my life in general, but I figured that he probably doesn't eat too many cakes.
JON: Right. So you wanted to look lean.
PAUL: Yeah.
JON: In a monk way.
PAUL: In a monkish way, yes.
JON: Okay. I haven't seen the movie yet. Are you pleased with the finished result? Is it the film you hoped it would be?
PAUL: It's entirely what I thought it would be. [Jonathan laughs] I've seen it twice now--
JON: Hold on, hold on, now that sounds like a measured response, Paul.
PAUL: No, I simply... When I bought the book, I bought it in the fiction department, and it said "thriller." So I kind of figured--
JON: You knew it would be a thriller.
PAUL: Exactly.
JON: It's been a huge success; the book is a remarkable success story. I think... Is it the most popular book of its kind? It's one of the most...?
PAUL: It's sold like forty-six million copies.
JON: Had you read it before you were offered the part?
PAUL: No? [winces]
JON: Okay.
PAUL: I hadn't, probably out of some dreadful sort of British snobbery. I got a call from Ron Howard, and he said, "Do you want to be the monk assassin in The Da Vinci Code?" And I said... It took me not point two seconds to say yes, 'cause I'm thinking "Forty-six million copies..." I said yes. And then he said, "Have you read the book?" And I went, "Yes! Of course I've read the book! I'm not an idiot." And then I ran down to the bookshop.
JON: And bought it and read it.
PAUL: Nah.
JON: [laughs] Okay. Now you play... is he called... you said Silas--?
PAUL: Silas.
JON: Is he a mad monk, or is he just an angry monk?
PAUL: He's a monk that wasn't held enough as a child.
JON: [laughs] One of those monks.
PAUL: Exactly.
JON: Okay, and he's an intimidating fella. He's the scary villain of the piece, isn't he?
PAUL: Yes. I am Alfred Molina's assassin.
JON: So you go out and bump people off for...
PAUL: You know, it keeps me off the streets.
JON: He looks already... If you look at the photograph up there, you do look like someone who would, y'know, who you'd see in a shopping center, who would have an ASBO* slapped on him. It's your classic underfed hoodie. I guess, though, is it problematic, all the kind of problems the film is causing in terms of people who are part of that particular aspect of Christianity? Or Christians in general who say, "This is unfair. You're portraying us in an unfavorable light"?
PAUL: Yeah. I mean, I would love to offend lots of people. I just really didn't think it was gonna be this film. But if I have offended any Christians, I would ask them to forgive me. [laughter] That's one of the main tenets of the New Testament.
JON: You're actually doing them a favor, then. You're giving them the chance to turn the other cheek.
PAUL: Of course! Exactly.
JON: Okay. Are you nude in the film? Because normally when I go and see a Paul Bettany movie, there's a moment where I feel I have to look away because you normally do take all your clothes off.
PAUL: Well, if it's really integral to the plot, I'll keep my clothes on. Otherwise, I get 'em off at the first opportunity.
JON: So we see you naked.
PAUL: Yes, you do, I'm afraid.
JON: Now, you play an albino. Is it al-BY-no or al-BEE-no?
PAUL: We say al-BEE-no, yeah. In America they say al-BY-no.
JON: Was that in the song? "You say al-BEE-no, and I say al-BY-no... You say white weeno, and I say white wino..." [laughter] It's not a bad verse there!
PAUL: It's fantastic! It's better than po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to.
JON: But although you're quite blond, and I used to think you were a little bit that way, now I notice, compared to the photograph there, you're obviously not naturally albino.
PAUL: Right.
JON: So presumably... I dunno if you see yourself up there, that is pretty pale. You had to undergo not only makeup, but did they dye your hair? Is that a wig you're wearing?
PAUL: Well, yes, that's a wig. At first they did, they dyed my hair. And when they took the bleach off, there were these sort of bleeding holes in my head. And I said, "Could I actually sort of lose my hair forever doing this?" And they said yes. And I said, "Couldn't I conceivably wear a wig?" And it was like I'd just invented... They were like, "Wha--? What is that you say? A wig?" Yes.
JON: So you got the wig on. I guess they would probably like to dye it because a wig, sometimes you can see when someone's wearing a wig.
PAUL: Yes, unless you have a brilliant woman called Carol, who made it.
JON: Is she the only one who can do a wig that good?
PAUL: She does yours.
JON: Fuck off, blondie. [laughter] Now albinos have come forth and they have said, "What are you doing? Why have you made us a villain?" because there are too many albino villains in the history of movies. Apparently there have been sixty-eight albino villains since 1960.
PAUL: I'm sorry. Y'know, two things. It's no more a comment on albinos than it is on monks or people that wear sandals. And secondly, it would have been a very difficult conversation for me to go up to Dan Brown, having just sold forty-six million copies, and say, "You know, I just think this whole albino thing's wrong, and I'm changing it."
JON: Now, great cast with you in the movie, of course.
PAUL: Yes. No, they're not, really.
JON: Yes they are. We had Sir Ian McKellen on the show last week. He's one of the greats.
PAUL: Nah.
JON: He's one of the greats. He corrected my pronunciation. I said Audrey Ta-too, he says Audrey Tu-tu.
PAUL: Yeah.
JON: Okay. I don't think he knows what he's talking about, to be frank. And then, of course, Tom Hanks.
PAUL: Yes.
JON: Now Tom Hanks is one of the few movie stars I have not met, I have not interviewed. I have no idea. What's he like as a man? What's he like to work with?
PAUL: He's very funny. Y'know, it was a little nerve-wracking to begin with because it was the first Paul Bettany movie he'd ever been in.
JON: I hope he was open and eager to learn from you.
PAUL: Exactly. I tried to put him at his ease. No, I was a bit nervous, and the first thing I had to do was a fight scene. And we rehearsed it, and then we went to shoot it. And I had to leap out at him from nowhere, and I didn't want to hurt him, so I kept giving him a sort of warning, going "Arrrrrrrrhhh!" like this. And he went, "You're making this really weird noise. Could you stop it?"
JON: That's a nice thing that you were doing.
PAUL: Right.
JON: 'Cause he's an older gentleman, and he's still--
PAUL: I'm trying to give him some warning so I don't hurt him. But I did what he said. I jumped out, surprised the shit out of him, ran him across the room, hit him up against this light, and then it fell over, and I smacked him in the stomach. And he let out the most ghastly fart that you've -- [laughter] No, seriously, it was like spppppplllzzzzt! And I'm supposed to carry on with this really sort of tense scene, and I whip my gun out, and I'm supposed to look like this scary monk. But I'm actually looking like this [confused face], thinking I don't know what the form is. I just made Tom Hanks fart. Do I blame myself? Do I laugh? I'm a coward, so of course I elected to ignore it.
JON: Well, I think that's the polite thing to do, actually.
PAUL: But I went up to him and I picked him up, and he was roaring with laughter. And he said, "You made me fart on your first take! That's fantastic! What are you gonna do on your second?" I'm not going into that.
JON: Let's have a clip. You know, I haven't read the book. I'm excited about seeing The Da Vinci Code. I love a thriller.
PAUL: It's really good.
JON: I'm really looking forward to seeing it. And I love you as a bad guy anyway.
[trailer and short clip]
JON: Paul Bettany in action in The Da Vinci Code! And you know, all the reviews I've seen so far have all said you steal the movie.
PAUL: Thank you very much.
JON: Congratulations.
PAUL: Thank you.
JON: Hey, since you were last on the program, we had your wife on the program - the gorgeous, the almost impossibly attractive Jennifer Connelly. I guess she's Jennifer Bettany in the States.
PAUL: That's all makeup.
JON: Oh, come on. Has she spoken of me to you?
PAUL: It's endless.
JON: Is my name ever called out in bed?
PAUL: It's become a real problem between us.
JON: [laughs] Come on. And you have two kids, is that right?
PAUL: Yeah.
JON: I'm sure you are a good father, and I've read about the system that you and your wife have, which is when one of you is working, the other tries not to be, so that you've always got a kind of family--
PAUL: I just don't get employed that much, that's all. Yeah, no, that is true. We do try to do that. At the moment I'm in Africa being set-bitch, but that's not true, I'm here. But mostly I'm in Africa.
JON: She's filming at the moment, abroad?
PAUL: Yeah.
JON: So you take the kids with you when you're working.
PAUL: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
JON: That must be great for them to travel, to see the world like that as part of your life.
PAUL: It's fantastic. We all went on this amazing safari, and... Have you ever been on a safari?
JON: I've never been on safari. I've been to this place in Disneyland called the Animal Kingdom.
PAUL: It's a little different. It's a little different. I'll explain why. You get to park your Land Rover by the biggest predator on earth, right, and it roars if you're lucky enough. You hear this thing roar, and three tons of Land Rover shakes, and it becomes immediately clear where you are on the food chain. Except for about two to three people per year, in the Kruger National Park, who elect to get out of the relative safety of their car and try and pet the lion like it's Simba. Of course, what you see is Darwinism on a really base level. Natural selection happens right there.
JON: They get consumed.
PAUL: They get consumed, and they keep the gene pool clear for years.
JON: I've been to safari parks in the UK, and those cheeky monkeys love to get on and play with your windscreen wipers. Does that happen on a safari as well?
PAUL: Do you know what happened? I went back to our hotel room, and it had a plate-glass door, and I went to get some clothes for the kids. And there was this enormous baboon sitting in there, eating a Mars bar.
JON: Hold it. In your room?
PAUL: In my room. And all his mates were peeing on the bed, and he was looking at me like, y'know, like that, "What do you want?"
JON: How'd they get in your room? Did they have keys?
PAUL: This is a matter of... This is another argument between Jennifer and I. They had opened the balcony door, which she had left unlocked. [laughter] And they drunk the mini-bar. They were all drunk, and I--
JON: Come on!
PAUL: I swear! I swear!
JON: That's what you told reception so you didn't have to pay, isn't it? "And those porno movies, I wasn't watching them! It was that baboon! And the state he left the curtains in! Christ." Hey, but the baboons themselves, did they take anything apart from what they consumed? Did they steal anything? Are they like magpies? Do they go for watches and rings?
PAUL: No, no, just food. Sugar and booze.
JON: But they're quite big, aren't they?
PAUL: They're enormous. And I tried to... In a really English way, I went up to it and I went, "Shoo!" [laughter] He was like, "Fuck off."
JON: Paul, what a pleasure to see you again. Thank you for coming. The Da Vinci Code is gonna be a big hit, y'know, it's gonna be huge.
PAUL: I hope so.
JON: Paul, lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for being here. Paul Bettany, ladies and gentlemen!
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* "An ASBO is an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, handed out to delinquents of all ages." Thanks, Rahalia!