After years of head-turning performances in England, sexy Brit Paul Bettany has hopped the pond and become a Hollywood star, occupying difficult roles alongside heavyweights like Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman. The versatile actor has played characters as diverse as a levelheaded surgeon in “Master and Commander” and a villainous bank robber in “Firewall”, and he’s currently stalking Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou as the vicious Albino killer Silas in “The Da Vinci Code”.
Bettany was born in Harlesden, England on May 27, 1971 to actors Thane Bettany and Anne Kettle. Shortly after the tragic death of Bettany’s eight-year-old brother, he moved to London where he lived on his own and earned money as a street performer. In his late teens he began aggressively pursuing an acting career, studying at the London Drama Centre and eventually debuting in Stephen Daldry’s West End production of “An Inspector Calls”. He was briefly a part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, receiving much acclaim for “Romeo and Juliet”, “Richard III”, and “Julius Caesar”. The talented young actor made a name for himself on stage, and soon appeared in the 1997 Holocaust film “Bent” with Jude Law, Clive Owen, and “Da Vinci Code” co-star Ian McKellen, in addition to a string of British television roles including the Sean Bean series “Sharpe”.
After nearly ten years of acclaim on the stage and on screen in films like 2000’s “Gangster No. 1”, the award-winning actor broke in to Hollywood with Brian Helgeland’s 2001 medieval actioner “A Knight’s Tale”. The Heath Ledger-starring film wasn’t particularly successful, but Bettany wowed critics with his performance, even earning a London Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Helgeland was Bettany’s champion during this period, and the Oscar-winning writer-director shopped the talented Englishman around Hollywood. Ron Howard cast Bettany in a meaty role in the Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind”, and since then he has gone from a relatively unknown actor to a major Hollywood star in just a few years. “A Beautiful Mind” also introduced Bettany to the beautiful Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly, who would become his wife in 2003.
Bettany has since appeared in Peter Weir’s stunning “Master and Commander” with Russell Crowe, Lars von Trier’s prophetic “Dogville” with Nicole Kidman, as a romantic leading man opposite Kirsten Dunst in “Wimbledon”, and in the aforementioned “Firewall”. With the upcoming release of “The Da Vinci Code”, the endlessly versatile Bettany is sure to continue his meteoric rise to the top of Hollywood’s A-list.