Paul Bettany Says He Fell in Love with Johnny Depp Making "The Tourist"

In a Hitchcock-like state of affairs, Paul Bettany is an Interpol agent hunting down a master criminal who he's mistaken for Johnny Depp in The Tourist. The reason he believes Depp's character, Frank, an American math teacher on vacation in Italy, is Alexander Pearce, a man wanted in fourteen countries, is because Angelina Jolie has chosen him as a companion on a train -- and her series of manipulations are designed to confuse those following her about who Frank really is. Bettany reveals some of the hidden reasons behind the hunt, and what he has next in store.  

Q: Your character has two obsessions...

A: He's hunting down Alexander Pierce, he's obsessed with catching this man who has been foiling his every attempt, and he's also got a less-than-professional interest in Elise. He has a previous involvement with Elise, so part of his desire to catch Alexander Pierce is about wanting to catch a criminal, but he also wants to eliminate him as a rival for Elise. If the stars had been aligned slightly differently, she might have been his girlfriend, or so he thinks.

Q: What was it like working with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie? This was your first time working with them?

A: It was their first time working with me, as I like to think of it. [Laughs] I fell head over heels in love with Johnny Depp. Which everybody does. My love affair with him might be unrequited, but he's so generous and kind and refreshing. I never heard him be rude. I never heard him moan. He really does want to share the screen. He believes in it being a company of actors, which is lovely. I hate actors who moan. Yes, there are long days, but you're getting paid a fortune, you know what I mean?

Q: Well, sometimes actors have reason to moan -- perhaps when there's a certain level of invasion of privacy?

A: In Europe, the paparazzi can't take pictures of your kids. I don't think I signed a Faustian pact with the devil once I became an actor that meant I gave up all my rights. I don't mind people taking pictures of me, but don't take pictures of my kids outside their school. I might deserve it, but my kids don't. It's perverse to be standing outside a school taking pictures of children. And they notice it. I wish I could say they didn't. We try to make it as normal as possible, and explain what mommy [Jennifer Connelly] and daddy do for a job, but it's the one downside. You feel like you can't behave normally. You can't smack them. You have to wait to go inside to beat your children. That's going to read really differently in print! [Laughs]

Q: What do actors usually moan about amongst themselves, besides privacy issues?

A: Oh, the travel. "I have to go to Mexico." Yeah? You're going to be living in another country for five months? That's amazing! Especially if you can go out and see things, if you're interested in culture. We were shooting in Venice, with all those wonderful museums. So if you're lucky enough to be working there and you can see it all, that's great. Otherwise, that can be frustrating. But I love it.

Q: You also recently shot Priest in Los Angeles, which didn't require you to travel ...

A: I got to spend four-and-a-half months with my family during the making of Priest. That finished in December, I got January off, then I did The Tourist, which was a quick gig, and then I did Margin Call, which was another quick gig. So suddenly I'm in a slate of diverse films, where I'm a lone ranger, warrior-type priest jumping around and kicking vampires in Priest, the fall guy in The Tourist, and a complicated douchebag in Margin Call. So when my kids ask me, "What do you do for a living, Dad?" I say, "I dress up in other people's clothes."