It’s always odd to see one of the cinema’s few self-described atheists in religious garb. But something about Paul Bettany says monk (“The Reckoning,” “The Da Vinci Code”) or archangel (“Legion,” which opens Friday).
“Were I playing Prometheus, I wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to believe in Zeus,” he jokes. “But I don’t know why these fellows keep coming my way. It isn’t in any way planned.”
Bettany is starring opposite himself in movies right now. In “Legion,” he’s the archangel Michael, come to Earth to help folks survive an assault from God’s avenging angels. And in “Creation,” he’s Charles Darwin, in love with a devoutly religious wife (Jennifer Connelly, to whom Bettany is married) but working out his Theory of Evolution.
“When I’m making a movie as Charles Darwin, I’m sitting in my trailer, hankering to run around shooting vampires. And when I’m battling vampires [as in ‘Priest,’ which opens this fall] I think, ‘It would be awfully nice to be in something nice and quiet with a lot of talking in it.’
“I’m quite shallow that way.”
So just as his turn as the dashing politician Lord Melbourne in “The Young Victoria,” leaves theaters, he dons wings and takes on “Legion.”
“It’s a fun thing to play because he’s an angel who has the courage of his convictions. He defies his boss. And he’s got quite the boss to defy, doesn’t he?
“I do a movie like ‘Legion’ because I want to see an audience’s popcorn jump up in the air! I loved seeing those movies growing up. ‘Dawn of the Dead’ sticks with me. What a thrill, this siege with just a handful of people, trapped in a shopping mall, battling an onslaught of zombies. ‘Legion’ is just like that, without zombies.”
