Paul Bettany admits to leaving a top-secret Marvel script on a plane – and how he stopped the plot from leaking

Paul Bettany has shared a story about a travel slip that could have exposed Avengers: Infinity War. According to IGN, he told it on the radio, and it ended with a large cash tip at an airport.

Bettany, who plays Vision, appeared on Virgin Radio alongside his Vision Quest co-star Emily Hampshire. He opened with a blunt admission. “I’ve never told anybody this, but I once left the entire script for Infinity War on a plane,” Bettany began.

Marvel is known for tight script control. Pages are guarded closely on its sets, and the studio does not email scripts. A security guard delivers each script by hand, so losing an entire screenplay is a pretty big deal.

Paul Bettany realized his mistake too late

Bettany said he only noticed the mistake after he left the aircraft. He was already in his car. “Oh… oh… oh no!” he recalled thinking. Bettany said he was fortunate to have a helpful airport greeter who went back to retrieve the missing script.

“And I was lucky to have had a greeter that was a genius, and I got the greeter to go in and get it.” The thank-you was generous. “And I tipped that greeter like 500 bucks.” Bettany had only praise for the person who helped him. “They’re amazing,” he said.

The story shows how easily a script can slip out of an actor’s possession, even with strict security rules in place. Had the screenplay fallen into the wrong hands, it could have exposed major plot details before the film’s release. Bettany has spoken about script secrecy on that film before, so the topic is not new for him.

Meanwhile, Hampshire had her own story to share. She said she lost a script for VisionQuest, and security came to her house when she did not return the pages. These are the scenes an actor shoots that day. However, she said she did not realise they were sensitive. “Yes! I didn’t know they were precious. I probably threw them out!” she said.

Strict handling of pages has been part of Marvel sets for years. Before Avengers: Age of Ultron arrived in 2015, Elizabeth Olsen described the routine to the BBC. She plays Scarlet Witch. “It was quite funny that we had to burn our sides for the day… we weren’t allowed to go home with our little pages of whatever we shot that day,” Olsen said. She added that staff handled the pages after filming ended. “They took it from our trailers and shredded it. It’s pretty crazy.”

She also made a remark that fits Bettany’s story neatly, even though she made it about something else. She said audiences should watch the films in theatres. “These films aren’t plane movies… they deserve to be seen in a cinema the way it was made.”