Page 100 - Flaunt175-diana

FENDI coat, vest, and pants, VALENTINO shirt, and talent’s own glasses (worn throughout).
AMI PARIS shirt and pants, GI- USEPPE ZANOTTI shoes, GUCCI necklace, and BVLGARI jewelry.
the role of a gardener is less a profession and more an
immersive lifestyle. There are no weekends off, and a gar- dener doesn’t punch a clock. If not planting, it’s weeding, pruning, dictating, and the continuous focus on new cultiva- tions. Let’s say this then: Paul Bettany, an actor and man, is a gardener—always digging, planting, and watering his career and personal life. Where most actors in the space focus on a singular harvest, resultantly typecasting themselves, Bettany’s career is comparable with a lavish oasis, blooming with fields of experience, peppered with rarities, and yielding a dynamic and surprising return.
In the climactic scene of Avengers: Infinity War, when Thanos, the genocidal warlord from the planet Titan, rips
the Mind Stone from superhero Vision’s forehead, the brutal act kills the beet-faced synthezoid—a charming, factual, and romantic Avenger played by Bettany. It is an epic death. Sure, other superheroes have returned from severe and sensational fates, but Vision’s death seemed so complete, so irreversible, it would have been impossible for Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel, to ever find a way for the character to return. Right? So Bettany tore off his skin-tight crimson Vision mask one last time and returned to tend the fields of his career.
With over 40 diverse acting credits to his name, Betta- ny’s options were plenty. With the superhero seeds reaching their full potential, he could refocus on drama, which saw success with the Oscar-nominated A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Or he could branch off with more romantic comedy roles like Wimbledon. This is why, when he was summoned into a meeting with
the creative controllers of the Marvel Universe, he was sure
what the agenda would be before the executives had time to speak. Meaning: he would resign gracefully, because Paul Bettany was sure he was getting fired. “I said ‘Look...I don’t want it to be any weird feelings, ‘cause I’ve loved this job and thank you so much,” he recounts from London via a Zoom interview, “It’s been a great run, and I’m okay that it’s over.” Then he pauses and continues, “They went, ‘We want to pitch you a TV show. And they pitched the show, which was bonkers. I said yes, and that was it.”
Years have passed since that meeting, and the ensuing show which Kevin Feige proposed, WandaVision, debuted
in January, 2021 on Disney+ and was an instant hit. Bettany shares that after his work overseas in London (where he hails from) is wrapped, he will return to New York City, his beloved home base. For now, he is in a room decorated with cherry red roses in crystal glass vases, a shoulder length mirror, and a fireplace, all with a pristine white trim. His pressed plain white T-shirt and speckless leather bomber jacket, punctuated with aviator style glasses in the breast pocket, compliments the elegant background.
Bettany speaks with drawn-out sentences which keep
the listener charmed and captivated by the affectivity of each carefully curated word. His demeanor switches seamlessly from making sardonic, self-aggrandizing jokes, to speaking with a penetrating insightfulness. All the while, Bettany refus- es to lean into his ego. When I ask him if his children—he has three of them—at any point had the Vision action figure, he figuratively invites me to his house so I can personally attest to how unenthused they are by their dad being a superhero. On the topic of how he chooses a script for his next film, he
100