THOMAS LEUPP: So in your list of ideal roles to play, where does gun-wielding renegade angel rank?
PAUL BETTANY: Pretty high.
THOMAS LEUPP: Yeah?
PB: Pretty high. I have sort of split personalities like that. You know, if I'm, I… You know I do, I like going and making small, you know, heartfelt art house movies and then, um, while I'm making them I think, I really should be killing some vampires and running around, you know, firing some guns and then I make a movie like "Legion" or, or "Priest" which I made afterwards, which is another action movie and I'm on "Priest" thinking I really should go make a, a heartfelt little movie, you know?
TL: Maybe at some point you could combine them and have, like..
PB: Well I was thinking
TL: Charles Darwin killing vampires.
PB: Well if you think about it, how much, perhaps Charles Darwin's ideas would have been accepted more broadly if he had been carrying an AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle.
TL: I would've…
PB: You'ed have listened.
TL: …payed more attention, yeah.
TL: I wouldn't be a creationist.
PB: That's what I'm talking about.
TL: So, were there times when you were on the set of this, where, when you're thinking, this is the most preposterous thing I've ever done?
PB: Oh yeah but I, uh, often… you often feel that whether you're, whether you're running around, you know, shooting at zombies or whether you're standing in a shower in front of thirty people playing Charles Darwin. You know it's pretty preposterous, it's pretty weird way to earn a living.
TL: Yeah
PB: "Hey dad, what did you do today?"
"I showered in front of thirty people."
TL: And he doesn't ask any questions after that.
PB: It's all prepo… No 'cause he's humiliated. "That's what my dad does? Jesus!"
TL: Can't go to school the next day and…
PB: Yeah, "why can't you work in a bank?" Um, no it's all pretty preposterous and uh, you know, you make movies for different reasons. I obviously, you know, made Darwin 'cause I'm a big Darwinist, um, and I made this movie 'cause I wanted to see popcorn go up in the air and uh, movie theater. You want to be watching and then go "Ohh!" and see popcorn fly, you know?
TL: Yeah
PB: That's all. It's, and it's fun.
TL: Talk a little bit about "Priest"
PB: Yep
TL: What can we look foreword to in terms of it's vampires, it's vision of…?
PB: You can look forward to a couple things, we made it when it's exactly, it's the same director, and uh made it in this, with exactly the same spirit but we made it for three times the budget. Haha, and it was, um, it was, tha that was great, great fun. Our vampires are incredibly different, um, Scott, you know, was talking to me about it initially and I said "What are the vampires going to look like?" and he said "Ooh, wait, just wait. They're going to be different." Er uh, (how) different can they be? And…
TL: Yeah.
PB: They're really awesome looking. I mean, the artwork is extraordinary.
TL: Awesome like Robert Pattinson awesome?
PB: We can only hope to achieve something that awesome.
TL: Yeah. It's hard, it's hard to re-create that in the computer.
PB: It's hard to re-create that sort of, thing in a computer. It's a very di…, it's a, it's , it's a lot less, a lot less human.
TL: Ah, OK. Um, are you looking at "Priest" as a franchise for you? Do you even think in that…sense?
PB: Well you have to because they do a deal, the studio obviously does a deal with, 'cause they don't want you to make a massive success and then have to pay you a lot of money if they make a two and three, so you have an obligation to make two and three but they don't have an obligation to, uh, pick up your contract. That's the way it works.
TL: So we can look forward to eight more "Priest" movies?
PB: Um, er, well you'd have, you'll have to tell everybody to go and see the movie in order to, for the big receipts to come in that maybe then they will allow us to make more.
TL: I'll just have them send money to you directly.
PB: That's, that's, that works as well. Thank you.
