Paul Bettany’s return to the Marvel universe came with an unexpected injury.
An over-the-top performance on the set of Marvel’s “VisionQuest” left him with a gruesome eye injury that lasted two weeks.
“So, I was pretending to have a device on my head that is doing something to my brain, and I was just wildly overacting. And I blew out about 10 blood vessels in my eye,” he explained during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
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“I mean, I was it was a lesson in less is more,” Bettany added, before Kimmel showed a photo of his bloody injury to the audience.
Bettany admitted he was stuck with his injured eye for two weeks, but said that the show must go on.
“I think … it must have cost production so much to take it out because we shot the whole [thing].”
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And despite playing a character known for his superhuman vision, Bettany admitted his own eyesight was far from perfect.
“I mean the irony is the actor playing Vision is kind of myopic, you know. I can’t see a thing when I take my glasses off, which is great depending on the actor,” he joked.
Bettany reprised his role as Vision for the Disney+ series – the final chapter of a television trilogy that began with “WandaVision” in 2021 and continued with “Agatha All Along” in 2024.
In “VisionQuest,” Bettany portrays a rebuilt version of Vision who is struggling to understand his identity and recover a sense of purpose.
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“So when we find vision, he has had his memories restored, but he is unable or perhaps unwilling to attach any feelings to them,” Bettany told Kimmel. “And he is living a very quiet life in a pub in Scotland where he works.”
“At night he goes and lives in the fridge freezer, and he goes inside his own head and in that head is a kind of what we call the mind space, and it’s a mansion,” he explained, comparing the concept to the movie “Inside Out.”
“In that head, in that mansion are a bunch of different AIs who have differing personalities that help him sort of sift through the data of the day and understand humanity,” he added.
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Bettany got his start in the Marvel universe as J.A.R.V.I.S, Tony Stark’s artificial intelligence assistant. His new character, Vision, was created when the Avengers uploaded J.A.R.V.I.S.’s AI into a synthetic body originally designed by Ultron, using the Mind Stone to bring him to life.
“Do AI companies try to get you to do J.A.R.V.I.S. for them?” Kimmel asked.
“Gosh, I wish,” he said. “I would be hanging up my acting.”
“Maybe that is a seed that has now been planted,” Kimmel joked.
