Paul Bettany: having Johnny Depp texts read aloud in libel trial was ‘an unpleasant feeling’

The British actor, whose messages to Depp regarding the latter’s wife Amber Heard were publicised during a trial in 2020, has commented on the process

The actor Paul Bettany has spoken for the first time about having the text messages exchanged between himself and Johnny Depp concerning Amber Heard read out at Depp’s libel trial.

Bettany, who is currently promoting A Very British Scandal, told the Independent it was “a really difficult subject to talk about” and said he was concerned doing so would “just pour fuel on the fire”.

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‘Weird is good’: Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen on superhero sitcom WandaVision

She’s a chaos magician. He’s a density-changing synthezoid. Are Scarlet Witch and Vision really classic sitcom material? The stars of Marvel’s foray into TV reveal how it all came about

Marvel’s 2020 should have gone much differently. Its Black Widow movie and The Eternals should both have been released last year, with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings imminent. But the pandemic struck and now all three have been booted into the middle distance. And so it has now been 18 months since we last heard from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, when Avengers Endgame became the highest-grossing movie ever. And in that vacuum, the question of what happens next has only grown more intense. But the answer might not be what anybody expected. Marvel is about to break its silence with WandaVision – and it’s a huge departure. Not only is it the first TV show produced by Marvel Studios, it is also presented in the form of a half-hour sitcom. It is no exaggeration to call WandaVision the weirdest thing Marvel has ever done.

“Weird is good,” says Marvel Studio president Kevin Feige from beneath his trademark baseball cap. “I like weird. After Endgame, after the completion of a 23-movie Infinity Saga, we were soul-searching about what was coming next. WandaVision being our first for Disney+ is perfect. It was always about pushing the boundaries of storytelling, doing something we could only do with the narrative structure of television.”

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