Paul Bettany hasn’t seen his groundbreaking film, A Knight’s Tale, since its release in 2001.
When asked about the medieval action comedy by fans of La Comic Con, Bettany played the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, opposite Heath Ledger’s Squire-Night William Satcher.
“I saw (the movie) when it first came out. I’ve never seen it again since,” Bettany said (via Entertainment Weekly). “There are many reasons for that, but only one of them is that I missed Heath too much.”
Ledger, also known for his roles in “Ten Things You Don’t Like” (1999), “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), and “The Dark Knight” (2008), passed away in January 2008 at the age of 28. His death was determined to be an accidental overdose from a prescription drug.
“It was really before. It was like a lifetime,” Bettany said of “The Knight’s Tale.” “And sometimes people come up, people come to me on the street and quote things to me. I literally don’t remember. I don’t remember that.”
After films like “A Knight’s Tale,” “Gangster No. 1,” and “A Beautiful Mind” began his career in Hollywood in the early 2000s, Bettany joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Jarvis and Vision. He was on panel at LA Comic Con with his “WandaVision” co-star Elizabeth Olsen.
In an interview with the Vulture in 2021, Bettany spoke more about his experiences in collaborating with Leisure on “The Tale of the Knight.”
“You can say he just had the light that sparkled from him. He was a movie star, right?” Bettany told the Vulture. “At a moment, you met him and as you say, he was shining. It was very hard not to fall in love with him.