Paul Bettany Says WandaVision Made Him Realize He Should Have Been in Sitcoms His Entire Career

On Tuesday's Tonight Show, Paul Bettany briefly talked with Jimmy Fallon about the experience of filming his upcoming "Marvel sitcom" WandaVision in front of a live studio audience.

"I was incredibly nervous about the whole thing," Bettany said. "I hadn't been in front of a live studio audience for 20 years or something like that. It just really pointed out great things about my character, like how shallow I am, because you have this trapped studio audience — you know this — you have this trapped audience, they feel obliged to laugh, and I'm really shallow... it actually reminded me of a time where I was in the Czech Republic and I was making a movie called A Knight's Tale, and I had to do these speeches in English in front of a Czech audience, and they had to laugh uproariously, and of course they didn't understand a word I was saying, so they wrote these cards that said 'laugh' in Czech, and they would lift them up and everybody would laugh. There are literally no beginnings to my depths, because I felt like I was killing people."

Fallon didn't quite get it, and thought he was agreeing with Bettany by saying he didn't like fake laughs, but Bettany "felt the absolute opposite of that. It was enough for me. I don't have any personal resources. I'm incredibly shallow, so just the action of people laughing was enough for me. They didn't even need to mean it... I have found my wheelhouse. I have ruined my life. I wasted my life. I should have been in sitcoms the whole time." 

WandaVision premieres January 15 on Disney+.

People are talking about WandaVision in our forums. Join the conversation.

Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.