A Better World

A lovelorn tennis player, a gangster striving to be numero uno, a vampire slayer, Geoffrey Chaucer, and lately, a superhero robot… Paul Bettany plays these roles and more. In a career that allows you to be someone else, Bettany talks to Wayne Cheong in an aspect of so many Americans: anxious voter.

- Wayne Cheong

It is the day after 3 november and Paul Bettany sounds weary over the phone. “I’m just a little shell-shocked.” His words have that leaden air of someone who is exhausted. Like most Americans, Bettany stayed up all evening and into the wee hours of the morning, just waiting on the results of a continuous election.

“[Joe] Biden is still predicted with a 90 percent chance of winning. But yet again, the polls got it wrong, the media got it wrong… I just don’t know how democracy survives if there are two sets of facts. How do you vote if both sides have been fed by their own media outlets?”

Bettany is political and is aware that his celebrity might get in the way of said politics but he couldn’t just be quiet on social issues. So, four years ago, when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the British actor filed for US citizenship. He had already lived in New York for about 16 years then and wanted to dig in to save the republic. “I’ve lived here for a long time and I understood the political processes, what the electoral college is, which is the remnant of slavery, and that is still deciding our elections, instead of the popular vote.

“And so, I’ve decided to vote. I decided to get involved.” Then a weary beat. “What I didn’t realise is that I should have also moved to Florida [to make some sort of difference].” Bettany catches himself. “I mean, this isn’t the conversation you were probably expecting.”

It wasn’t. But I wasn’t surprised either. We were supposed to be talking about Bettany’s latest project, WandaVision, but given the climate (Nevada still hasn’t finished tallying the votes), politics will seep in and momentarily take control of the conversation.