Paul Bettany Says He’d Much Rather Go Naked Than Wear Vision’s Costume

Paul Bettany must have thought he’d landed a plum gig when he signed on to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with his role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in the first three Iron Man movies requiring him to do little more than step into the recording booth for a couple of hours and walk away with a paycheck for his troubles.

However, the actor went on to become an integral part of the live-action mythology after Vision was brought to life in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the sentient AI soon found himself as a key part of the team. He may have been killed by Thanos during Infinity War‘s emotionally charged climax, but Bettany will return from the dead to share top billing with onscreen love interest Elizabeth Olsen in upcoming Disney Plus series WandaVision.

Portraying the lead in a TV show requires a lot more time and effort than being a relatively minor player in an ensemble movie, and as a result, the 49 year-old was forced to endure the painstaking process of turning him into Vision on an almost daily basis. It’s certainly not a fun thing to go through, and when asked in a recent interview if he’d rather be naked for the rest of his life or dress only as his MCU character, his response was swift and definitive.

“I would really, can I ask, can I choose where I’m naked or am I just naked guy? I’m gonna pick that. I’m gonna pick naked. It’s pretty uncomfortable in the Vision outfit. I might not die of heat exhaustion.”

As a purple synthezoid powered by an Infinity Stone, a lengthy stint in the makeup chair was always going to be required to convincingly depict Vision in live-action, but based on the footage we’ve seen so far from WandaVision, it appears that Bettany gets the opportunity to go au naturel for the majority of the sitcom-influenced sequences, which must have been a huge relief.