Adam Rutherford: The theory of evolution is pretty much the most important idea in the history of humankind. So how does it feel playing the man who came up with it?
Paul Bettany: Well, it was both a real honour and also horribly frightening in equal measure. Often when I'm preparing for a job I find myself scratching around for research, but with Darwin there's almost too much material.
AR: In a sense, you've kind of done Darwin before. Dr Stephen Maturin in the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is essentially
Charles Darwin
when he was on the Beagle. Was that a useful starting point for you?
PB: Yes, I suppose it became one. It's funny, it didn't really occur to me until it was very late. I don't quite know why but I think it's because, obviously, Darwin was a real person whereas Maturin is made-up. And he's a spy and a great swordsman, and you get the feeling that if you put him into solitary confinement he would come out very much as he went in. He had great personal resources, whereas Darwin, not so much. I think he would have absolutely fallen apart had he been away from Emma [Darwin] for more than a week.
AR: What was it like having Randal Keynes there, one of Darwin's great, great-grandchildren to advise?
PB: I must say that all the advisors ? John Collee who wrote
Creation
, and peculiarly also wrote Master and Commander, he wrote the script with Jon Amiel ? they were all so knowledgeable and were all fact checking all the time. There was a litany of geologists and so forth there to help get the science right. Darwin is one of those people that you feel like you know a lot about, and then when you get down to it you realise that everything you know about him can be written on the back of a ￡10 note next to that picture of the old guy with a beard. It was very useful to have people around with real knowledge. Randal really loved the script. To have that sort of family seal of approval felt incredibly important and gave us a real sense of safety that we were on the right track.
AR: Let me ask you about playing great scientific thinkers. You were also in A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. Is there any particular trick to playing geniuses with such immense intellect?
PB: Well, I think you have to surrender to the fact that you're not going to be able to be that person. I'm going to be found out as not being the person that really came up with evolution theory and it's all right, I can calm down about it. The film is set during the writing of [the] Origin [of Species], which, as I'm sure you know, is 20 years after he returned from the Galapagos. The film is largely about his procrastination and his inability to write, and it making him sick, and the death of his daughter, and the effect that that had on his relationship with his wife, and their very, very separate and different means of dealing with it. So there's a lot to be getting on with that doesn't demand that I produce perhaps the most intelligent man that ever lived.
AR: You mentioned the importance of Annie who died while he was writing the Origin. Scientists often get played or portrayed as being very emotionless, so how do you draw that story of intense personal grief?
PB: Talking to people about it, they say, "Oh, isn't that a bit weird, he looked at his children like they were projects." I think that when he did it was a sign of the utmost love and respect, because science was his great love and his life. So, number one, of course he was going to involve his family; and number two, for him science was an act of love, and study was an act of love.
AR: And what's it like playing opposite your own wife [Oscar Winner] Jennifer Connelly, her playing Emma Darwin?
PB: Well, I think we did get a lot for free in terms of the physicality that real married people have with each other. I think when you're trying to produce a relationship on screen that doesn't actually exist, perhaps sometimes there's a temptation to look at each other more, to touch each other more, whereas there's a slight absentminded closeness that you see between Jennifer and I in the movie which is really, really useful.
AR: And in terms of the conflict between Darwin coming to a point of at least agnosticism from being religious, and Emma retaining her religion, how do you develop that sort of conflict between the two of you?
PB: Darwin was a social conservative who had a revolutionary idea, and it was very difficult for him. I think once he had this idea, he couldn't help seeing how it fit like a glove everywhere he looked, in the indifferent cruelty of nature. I am an atheist. But I don't think it's a film about atheism, I think it's a film about a man who became at least agnostic, as I think he always called himself. The film is set up to do all of that. When their child dies, he goes to science and she goes to religion. And the exact thing that he is working on is potentially going to take her solace away. So I think that's an incredibly moving and dynamic thing to play, so in that sense it took care of itself.
AR: We're touching on the religious aspects and the religious impact that the Origin had. While you were filming did you get a sense of why it's so important that this story is told at this point in history, because the understanding of evolution is pitifully low according to every survey that comes out.
PB: Yes. I mean, I'm sort of flabbergasted by the... I think it's in Kansas, you'll have to fact check that, that they're not teaching evolution theory anymore, and apparently there was an online poll of English teachers, British teachers and it was something like 60% thought it should be taught alongside creationism, which for me is really shocking, but... Like I say, I don't think it is a film about atheism, but for me, as an atheist, to have a viable alternative is incredibly important. The difficulty of looking at a system like natural selection if you have any sort of moral sense yourself, is almost what makes it beautiful. It's a spur to try and rise above our own nature. Human beings have brains that are big enough to take them out of that brutality, and that is a faith of sorts, because it's in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
AR: Darwin was quite reluctant to get drawn into any of these sorts of discussions and he left that to his supporters, and naysayers. I get the impression from the film that to a certain extent it's really going to be set out for all to see and it's almost like it's not in tune with how he lived his life.
PB: Well, yes, our film coming obviously a couple of years later [than when it is set], it's a slightly less frightening task for us. But I think it would only be fair to reiterate that some of the filmmakers are agnostic, some of the filmmakers are atheist. It would be unfair for me to make the film sound like it was entirely about beliefs that I held. The film attempts to describe an incredibly difficult period of Darwin's life during which he wrote the most controversial book ever written, I suppose.
AR: So Darwin's religion is not the central idea behind the film?
PB: Well, religion is sort of a function in the script, in that [Emma] is a fervent Christian and it's her way of dealing with the loss of her daughter, which it is for a lot of people. They had this incredibly modern relationship, with this fantastic system of writing. They were obviously in the same house but they would write each other letters and discuss things in letters, and it seems so grown-up and so modern. They were really honest, brutally honest with each other about their feelings and this was one subject that was very difficult for them to discuss together and that is what religion is for in the movie in terms of the mechanics of the story.
AR: So, they wrote these letters to each other and he was so obsessively meticulous with all of his note-taking. I think Emma and Charles played backgammon pretty much every night for the whole of their lives, and he kept a score book…
PB: We didn't get to that in the film. It's a real regret of Jen and mine is that the backgammon didn't make it into the film.
AR: You've done Darwin as a young man on the Beagle. Now you've done him as middle-aged man writing the most important book ever written. Any plans to play him as an old bearded man walking around the church while the family are inside praying?
PB: I would love to. [In the film] we actually get to him walking around the church and not entering it. But I would love to play the old Darwin, simply to be able to say I've had the biggest beard in cinematic history.
AR: Well I sincerely hope that that happens, I'm sure there's a good story in it. Good luck with the film. I can't tell you what it's like to be a film geek and a Darwin obsessive and to have the two of them come together.
PB: Oh good, me too. He is a hero of mine and I think in the absence of Jesus, he's a really useful hero to have.