Paul Bettany 'misses' Heath Ledger
Paul Bettany can't watch his 2001 movie A Knight's Tale because he misses late co-star Heath Ledger.
Paul Bettany can't watch A Knight's Tale because he "misses" the late Heath Ledger so much.
The 54-year-old actor portrayed poet Geoffrey Chaucer in the 2001 film opposite the Brokeback Mountain star - who died from an accidental overdose in 2008 - as William Thatcher and although it is still a fan favourite, Paul admitted he "can't remember" any dialogue from the movie because he's only seen it once.
During an appearance at LA Comic Con over the weekend, at which Paul took part in a Q+A with his WandaVision co-star Elizabeth Olsen, he was asked if fans ever approach him and ask him to repeat any of his iconic lines from A Knight's Tale.
He replied: “It was a really long time ago.
“It was like another lifetime ago. And people do come up sometimes, people come up to me on the street and quote things at me, and I literally can't remember. I can't remember any of it.
“I saw [the film] when it first came out. I've never seen it again since. There are lots of reasons for that, and just one of them is that I miss Heath too much.”
The WImbledon actor previously recalled how Heath "shone" on the set of A Knight's Tale.
He told Vulture: "I can tell you that he just had a light that shined off him. He was a movie star, you know? Just immediately, you met him, and he shone, as you lot say, and it was very hard not to fall in love with him — I think for anybody. He was a very playful, joyous spirit.”
It was revealed last year that director Brian Helgeland had a sequel to A Knight's Tale planned but the filmmaker claimed it was scrapped due to Netflix's algorithms.
He told Inverse magazine: "I pitched it to Sony because they own the rights, and it seemed like they were interested in making it with Netflix, releasing it as a Netflix movie.
“My understanding is that Netflix tested this sequel idea through their algorithms, which indicated that it would not be successful.
"‘A Knight’s Tale’ seems to get more popular with every passing year; it’s the strangest thing.”
Helgeland and the team already had big plans for a sequel almost 20 years ago when they finished work on the original movie.
He recalled: "When we finished A Knight’s Tale, we were already thinking about making the sequel as a pirate film.
“The plot revolved around Count Adhemar (Rufus Sewell) kidnapping Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon) and taking her to Constantinople.
"They end up as galley slaves after their boat is captured by pirates. There’s a prisoner on the boat who has a treasure map tattooed on his back, but he keeps getting flogged for indiscipline.
"The guys volunteer to take turns getting flogged in this prisoner’s place, so the map isn’t erased. Sony didn’t want to do it.”
