Jon Favreau Sold JARVIS Role To Paul Bettany As A Robot With No Personality

Paul Bettany explains how Iron Man director Jon Favreau pitched the role of JARVIS to him. Before he became Vision in the MCU, the actor was already part of the franchise, voicing Tony Stark’s trusted AI who helped him polish his armor design after he created the Mark I in Afghanistan.

Things turned an unexpected path in Avengers: Age of Ultron, however. Created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner on the heels of Ultron’s emergence, Vision is a combination of a lot of things, he’s JARVIS uploaded to a synthetic body upgrade made of Vibranium. From there, Vision has become a key player in the MCU, albeit mostly relegated into a side character while the focus was more on the primary Avengers team. He eventually developed a romantic relationship with Scarlet Witch which will be the backbone of the new Disney+ series, WandaVision. Before he makes his franchise return, however, Bettany is looking back at his journey as an actor in the universe, starting with just a voice acting role in 2008.

Speaking exclusively with Screen Rant as part of the press junket for his latest MCU endeavor, Bettany recalls how Favreau sold the role as JARVIS to him for Iron Man. Essentially, the filmmaker wanted him to voice a robot that has no personality.

I have loved this entire journey from the very first moment that Jon Favreau rang me up and said, “Hey, I mean, somebody with no personality to play a robot. Would you do it?” I have had an absolute riot, and this has been the absolute pinnacle of it.

It’s just an explosion of mad creativity. It’s such a big swing from Kevin Feige and Marvel, and Jac Schaeffer wrote just a beautiful, elegant, funny, sad, action-packed, explosive script. It was just wonderful to take part in.

What’s interesting is that JARVIS wasn’t exactly without a personality. Granted that he’s monotonous in the delivery of his lines, he had fun back-and-forths with Tony Stark. In fact, his existence made those scenes of the genius, billionaire creating the Mark II and its subsequent armor versions fun as JARVIS gave him feedback. As Vision learns humanity through his relationship with Wanda, Bettany is flexing his acting muscles in the MCU, now more than ever.

Bettany is in a unique position in the MCU as one of the few actors who has been in the franchise since Iron Man that still has a bright future in the universe — the other one being Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Granted that the character supposedly died in Avengers: Infinity War and the specifics of his resurrection in WandaVision are still unclear, Marvel Studios can properly bring him back since he’s an Android that can be rebuilt. Of course, that would pose some issues since the Mind Stone, which supposedly is the origins of his powers is no longer in the primary MCU. Nevertheless, if Kevin Feige and his team have more Vision in the franchise’s future, it’s safe to assume that they’ll find ways to incorporate him in some capacity.

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