One of the best parts of "Avengers: Age of Ultron," hands down, is the big reveal of a new superhero, Vision.
We won't spoil much about the character if you haven't seen the film, but the droid, masterfully played by Marvel veteran Paul Bettany, steals just about every scene in which he appears.
You couldn't imagine anyone else in the role.
So it's incredible to imagine that moments before the 43-year-old actor was offered the role, a producer told him he'd never get another gig in Hollywood.
During an interview with Business Insider, Bettany broke down how he first found out about playing Vision, and how the news couldn't have come at a better moment.
"I’d actually just had a meeting with a producer who had told me I was never going to work again and I stepped out into Hollywood and I sat on the sidewalk with my feet in the gutter and I thought ‘F--- me,'" Bettany told Business Insider.
What happened next was unexpected.
"My phone rang and it was Joss Whedon and he said, ‘Do you want to play the Vision in the next ‘Avengers’ movie?’" Bettany continued. "And, I said yes. And I sort of looked up to heaven and thought karma’s very quick these days ... and [I] flipped the building behind me the finger.”
"It happened just like that. I sat down and my phone rang. Very funny. But you know if I had a dollar for every time somebody told me my career was over, my career could be over," he chuckled.
The English actor said he wasn't familiar with the character when offered the role.
"No, not at all," he said. "It was a very different world in the ‘70s when I grew up. I guess they [Avengers] were around, but we really had our own comics and stuff like the Eagle with Dan Dare and the Mekon and stuff like that. Really, what we knew was from TV shows ... We knew Batman, and we knew Spider-Man, and we knew Superman."
Bettany did end up getting a bunch of comics on the character to read up on Vision. This is the second role Bettany has played in a Marvel film after a recurring role since 2008 as Tony Stark's A.I. J.A.R.V.I.S.
"Everybody I would talk to knows the characters and read comics as kids, and we just didn’t," Bettany said. "But also you’re working with sort of the professors of the Marvel world so if you ever have a question ... [Marvel president] Kevin Feige and [executive producer] Jeremy Latcham, [director] Joss Whedon ... they’re like encyclopedias."
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