Get to Know the Artificial Intelligence of @Avengers: #AgeofUltron ~ Paul Bettany and James Spader Interview ~ #AvengersEvent

While I attended an expense paid trip by Disney to the press events for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Monkey Kingdom, and Agents of SHIELD, all opinions are 100% my own.

Marvel’s AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON has been out in theaters for a week now! With final weekend box office numbers reported, AGE OF ULTRON has come in with the second highest grossing weekend ever (second to 2012’s AVENGERS) coming in at 191.27 million dollars!!! How awesome is that? Hopefully you’ve been following along my #AvengersEvent coverage here on the blog! Today we are detailing the chat with the film’s artificial intelligence… Paul Bettany as The Vision, and James Spader as Ultron! Earlier this week I posted my interview article feauting Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye)! Make sure you check out my previous interview posts with Captain America and Thor aka Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, Marvel newcomers Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver) and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), director Joss Whedon, and Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios.

Now if you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t want to give too many spoilers away. I can tell you that Ultron, voiced by James, is an artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark for a pilot peacekeeping program. However, Ultron becomes quite overwhelmed with what I can describe as a “god complex” and soon his main goal becomes to destroy the earth. As for Paul Bettany’s Vision? Well, you’ll have to see the movie to find out how he comes about.

** WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!**

First James gave us some background information on how Marvel brings Ultron to life, and talks about what it was like to be on set.

James: I had multiple sessions doing additional dialog recording. It was sort of new stuff to further define, clarify and so on and sort of distill the prism. But most of the dialog that you hear in the movie and most of what you’re looking at, we shot on the set just in a fairly conventional fashion.

Original photo provided by Walt Disney Publications. Text edits by me.

James: It didn’t feel conventional at the time, considering everything I was in. But to be able to film it was all sort of … the dialog was all from what we shot on the set doing scenes with the other actors as you would in any film.

I was so pleased with footage during post production. I sort of saw big sections of the entire film. Even in its sort of formative stages, it was remarkable to see. I haven’t seen the face really yet fine-tuned because that’s the most sort of precise and infinitesimal thing that they do in terms of trying to take advantage of my expressions and translate them into a metal guy.

Photo credit Louise Manning Bishop / MomStart.com. Text edits by me.

James: My son did see the film a couple of days ago.  And I said, “But how about the face?” He says, “You know, I see you in the face.” He said, “Amazingly enough, considering it doesn’t really have a nose. I really saw your eyes and your expression and certainly move- head movements, everything. I saw it all there.” So I guess it was worth it to go through all of the arduous process of motion capture… which is fascinating actually. Do you mind if I tell you just very quickly? Sorry Paul…

Paul: (Jokingly) No, no, no. No it’s… I’ll just have a snooze. Paul was such a good sport!

James: I’ll tell you a very funny thing. I’m just excited about it because somebody in an interview just before this had asked specifically asked about this and I hadn’t thought about it until now. But the very first day that I walked onto the studio lot, I walked into a room and they had cameras set up around the room. Then there was a bunch of guys with a whole bunch of laptops all sitting around. They put me in a fractal suit,which is just a sort of two piece but has shapes and colors and things all over it. Then they dotted up my face and they put a big rig on my back and a big headgear rig, that had two antenna that come down, that are cameras. They had me go through a range of motions… fingers, everything, head turns, and all the rest of it. And then, uh, they put it into some program on the computer or something and, uh, I stood around for about ten, fifteen minutes and fifteen minutes later I was, also set up around the room were these monitors, and in fifteen minutes I could walk in my outfit into the center of the room and turn my head, move my fingers, go like this, and I could look at a monitor and see a sort of formative stage of Ultron doing everything I was doing.

So right from the very first moment I arrived there, I could start getting a sense of what physicality would be appropriate for that eight foot robot. There was a guy there, quite small, who would’ve been proportionate to my height.  I’m five-ten. He was very small. He was a proportionate height to maybe an average height Avenger might be, in proportion to me, if I was eight feet tall.

Original photo provided by Walt Disney Publications. Text edits by me.

James: He was wearing a fractal suit. He was a stunt guy and was wearing all the gear as well. They made him do the range of motion and everything else. Within 15 minutes he and I would go move around the room, and he was a  different character, so I was able to see right away me as an eight foot Ultron with another actor, who’s a proportionate height to what an average size person would be.

It was really amazing. So right from the very first moment I was already getting a sense of how to perform for this character.

(This is my question I was able to ask!) We always knew you as JARVIS. What was your reaction when you found out that you would be The Vision?

Paul: Well it was sort of vindication really because I had just come out of a meeting with a producer who told me my career was over. This is a true story. I sat on the curb in Hollywood with my feet in the gutter and my phone went off. I looked at it and went, “Hello?” I didn’t recognize the number and it was Joss Whedon. He said, “Do you want to play The Vision?” And I went, “Um, yeah, I kinda do!” True story. So it was lovely.

How is it different for you on set?

Paul was not on set for Iron Man, except at the last minute to solve any clarity issues.

Photo credit Louise Manning Bishop / MomStart.com. Text edits by me.

James: I did not have to cut back on carbs. Somehow amazingly enough, those animators were able to slim me right down.

(To James) Did you have to be convinced to play Ultron or were you (excited) the moment he asked you to play it?

James: I had met (with Kevin Feige and Jeremy Latcham) about two to three years prior to getting the telephone call from Joss Whedon. My agent is also Sam Jackson’s agent. So she’s very in tune with what’s going on in the Marvel world. Also I have three sons, and I have never in my entire career ever chosen a film to work on for the sake of my children. Most of the films that I’ve done, they really shouldn’t watch. I remember I took my mother when she was in her eighties to go with me to Sundance to see this film I did called Secretary…

Paul: What a schoolboy error that was!

James: Both my mother and father have sat through some… just an array of perverted little movies that I’ve made. But in any case I wanted… You know, my second son loved comics and loved superhero movies and fantasy and all that stuff. He just loved it. I also at the time I had a three-year-old son, and he was already sort of raiding his brother’s little figures was excited about it. I just thought that I just want to make a film for them, you know? So I went in and I sat down with Kevin Feige and Jeremy Latcham and they had reached out to my agent and said, “You know, we’d love to sit down with James.”

Those sort of meetings are always just so brutal and fruitless. I had said, “Really? Do they?” and then my agent said, “Kevin doesn’t really meet with anybody unless there really is a genuine interest.” And I said, “Great. Well then I’d love to talk to him.” So I sat down with him and I said, “I just would love to do one of these things and just be such fun.” And I told him the reasons why and I think he really responded to that because that’s his fan base. So we were sort of looking for (the right role)…  And then all of a sudden he would be like, “I know what James is looking for. He wants a really great bad guy.” So all of a sudden, about two or three years after that meeting, Joss Whedon walked into their offices and said, “You know, I don’t really have anyone else for this role except for James Spader.”

Photo credit Louise Manning Bishop / MomStart.com. Text edits by me.

James: Then they said, “Well, funny you should mention that because we’ve been trying to find he right thing (for him). So the next thing was a phone call from Joss and as soon as I spoke to him and … I’m sorry. I’ve never been able to answer anything in a short and precise! But anyway I said, “What the hell can I bring to an eight foot robot? That’s not my skill set.” He told me what he was looking for in terms of the character. He said, “You know, let me send you something to look at because the script is in revisions right now. Let me send you something so you can get a sense of what this character really is.” He said, “In the comic books, the guy’s just sort of this raging robot. ‘I am going to destroy you’ you know?” He said “I really want to extrapolate on that.” So he sent me these scenes that were threatening, intimidating, crazy, funny, quoting Emily Dickenson.

It was just such a weird, complex amalgamation of things. As it turns out, Kevin Feige told me a couple of days later, “You know those aren’t even scenes from the movie. Joss wrote those scenes just to send you, just so that you’d have a sense of the character.” I thought, what a lovely thing to do, that he just wrote these scenes as this is what this character’s going to be like.  They were really tailored for that. He was absolutely right. It was all of that. Just a weird mix of crazy, scary, funny, poetic, you know, just a weird guy.

(To Paul) How much of the Vision was makeup and CGI? Paul: It was a lot of makeup! I would sit in the chair and then you would wait for eternity for it to come and then you’d be… done. So it’s all real, from about here (motions to face) forward the prosthetic, well the prosthetic actually stops here, and then this was painted purple.

They would have tracking dots so that they would then move the circuitry on my face and my musculature could move, and you could still see me express things. We tried having full prosthetics that went over everything and we lost a lot of expression in the face. So thankfully… because that was really, really uncomfortable.

Original photo provided by Walt Disney Publications. Text edits by me.

(To Paul) What’s it like being the only other superhero who can wield Thor’s hammer?

Paul: I’m not sure I’m even allowed to talk about that. I think that’s number one in bold print on my things not to talk about. If you want another question…

James: Now I can say, I think it’s rather impressive.

(To James) You have always played the bad guy we love to hate in so many of your films.

James: You don’t hate him! With Ultron, is there any part of your humor in Ultron? James: Yes.

We definitely see your mannerisms.

Paul: (Jokingly) And his world view, in fact. Global devastation…

Photo credit Louise Manning Bishop / MomStart.com. Text edits by me.

James: He was looking for that sense of humor. He was looking for that irreverence in marriage with the other aspects. So he took advantage of it and we would play with things and I’d make a suggestion. But I really was very faithful to what he was writing because he was really writing it so specifically to me.

Paul: Right. If you’re looking for a James Spader type there’s not many places to go, you know. It’s a one-stop shop.

James: I think the reason why he probably walked in to Kevin Feige and said, “James Spader is who I’m thinking about for this and I don’t really have anyone else on the list,” is ’cause I think he probably, he’d already written to that.

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The interview with Paul and James was great. They were an absolutely pleasure to interview and easy to chat with. When we were time was up, James even said, and I quote, “Is that it? Oh my God. It seems like we should dump something else and just stay here for a little bit!” They were both kind enough to pose in a group photo with us.

Original photo provided by Walt Disney Publications. Text edits by me.

Paul Bettany Discusses His Role as The Vision

Check out this quick interview with Paul at the red carpet premiere for AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. Marvel Entertainment asks him a little more about his role as the Vision.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer

Be sure to connect with the AVENGERS on Facebook and Twitter!

Marvel’s AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is in theaters now!!!

Want to check out my Avengers inspired recipes?
Brooklyn Rueben Burger
Hulk SMASH Burger
M&M’s® Captain America Shield Pie
Captain America Berry Shield Tart
Thor Mighty Stuffed Burger

Want a glimpse back on my trip to Los Angeles? Be sure to check out my Twitter (@AshBG) and Instagram (@ashb4211), and look for the hashtags #AvengersEvent, #MonkeyKingdom, #LAZoo, #ABCTVEvent, and #AgentsOfSHIELD.