Paul Bettany Quotes

#1. I feel safe in saying this, and that is that Peter Weir is without a doubt one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I'd open a door in a movie for him if he asked me to.

Paul Bettany

#2. I find that our response to homelessness really puzzlingly. It's a peculiar response that people have.

Paul Bettany

#3. I think language is the most important thing that human beings have ever accomplished, and the only thing that's really going to get us all out of the troubles that we find ourselves in.

Paul Bettany

#4. Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers. I wanted to watch what my actors were doing and how they were telling the story.

Paul Bettany

#5. I don't want to infantilize the actor; I want to empower the actor. Actors can be many things, but all of the really good ones are really great storytellers, and I'm interested in that. If you're not interested in that as a director then you better be Stanley Kurbrick.

Paul Bettany

#6. I have no interest in movies that take you somewhere dark and leave you there, for no reason.

Paul Bettany

#7. I'm sure some people have an absolute grasp of where they are in their careers. I just don't think about it that much.

Paul Bettany

#8. But I feel truly wowed by the architecture and the meaning of the architecture if you get lost in it and think about the man hours in the smallest little chapel, and the love involved. God it's fantastic.

Paul Bettany

#9. The only way one can guarantee one's loyalty is love. Loyalty is beyond logic, really.

Paul Bettany

#10. Yeah, I love history and I loved it as a kid.

Paul Bettany

#11. The only thing I think I can be accused of about paparazzi is being really naive. I didn't think about it coming along with the job and I never, during my three years at drama school, fantasized about one bit of it.

Paul Bettany

#12. Up until like five seconds ago, I just took what jobs came along.

Paul Bettany

#13. I realized that this story [Shelter] is all about family, family loss, and how it influences you day to day life.

Paul Bettany

#14. My experience of people is that they are infinitely forgivable.

Paul Bettany

#15. The trouble with talking about acting is that it's like sex. It's enormously fun to do but just dreadfully embarrassing when you have to talk about it.

Paul Bettany

#16. In a world of increasing grey areas, we are becoming more and more entrenched in black and white positions.

Paul Bettany

#17. Doing the big budget films really makes you appreciate doing movies like Shelter. It's because this is like doing theater, you just have to hit the ground running

Paul Bettany

#18. 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.

Paul Bettany

#19. So the actual privilege is that you can then take time off - and if you don't, you're a fool. You're earning all this money to support children whom you then don't see, which is absurd.

Paul Bettany

#20. For a while, I stopped enjoying making movies and I stopped enjoying acting, because I made a few decisions that I wish I hadn't made.

Paul Bettany

#21. 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.

Paul Bettany

#22. I feel like the world we live in seems to be full of an increasingly grey area, but the culture that we live in seems to be getting really entrenched in black and white positions, and I think it's urgent to talk about that because it's going to kill us all.

Paul Bettany

#23. I still read the British papers, but I've never been a Royalist, ever. It's funny, there always seems to be much more of a fascination with the Royal Family over here then there does in England.

Paul Bettany

#24. In America, they shoot budgets and schedules, and they don't shoot films any more. There's more opportunity in Europe to make films that at least have a purity of intent.

Paul Bettany

#25. It's weird, because usually if you're British and you go to America you play baddies; but I play naughty people here and goodies in America.

Paul Bettany

#26. The difficulty of looking at a system like natural selection if you have any sort of moral sense yourself, is almost what makes it beautiful.

Paul Bettany

#27. 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.

Paul Bettany

#28. An actor has so much less space and responsibility. Sometimes you come on, and there are already tape marks for where you are supposed to stand, and the dialogue is already decided on. If you want to make a change and contribute something, it has to be approved by a number of people.

Paul Bettany

#29. The fact that in America bread lasts so long. You buy bread, and then it's bread forever - it's Forever Bread!

Paul Bettany

#30. When I became a father acting sort of took the place of what I did in my free time and my children became the main focus. I play a lot and my children play. Both my sons - my daughter's still too young really - have surpassed me with their music skills, which is wildly irritating.

Paul Bettany

#31. For some ungodly reason, I end up being naked in a lot of stuff. But there is a certain grace and kudos that come with taking your clothes off on the first day, a respect that is given by the rest of the cast.

Paul Bettany

#32. I was born a Catholic and now I'm a lapsed Catholic. I'm something but I'm not a believer any more.

Paul Bettany

#33. I really like telling stories. When I was a kid, I wanted to write songs. In quite a fundamental, gratifying, childish way, I enjoy the doing of telling a story.

Paul Bettany

#34. I think when you're trying to produce a relationship on screen that doesn't actually exist, perhaps sometimes there's a temptation to look at each other more, to touch each other more.

Paul Bettany

#35. I simply don't understand the refugee crisis. The history of humanity can be told through a story of migration and settlement. If I can't protect my family, I'm coming to where you are; I'm just coming. It's a round world, and we've all got to get on with it and move on.

Paul Bettany

#36. I'm a guy who is married to an actress, who has three children, and lives in Tribeca. Where do you draw the line on what I am allowed to discuss?

Paul Bettany

#37. I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist.

Paul Bettany

#38. I wanted to know as the director how the actors wanted to tell this story I wanted to know what they thought.

Paul Bettany

#39. I learned so much about myself from reading this script and doing this movie [Shelter] because the level of judgment and the lack of humanity I saw in myself was disgusting. I never took into account what a homeless person might have been through.

Paul Bettany