Paul Bettany certainly had a standout performance for his little screentime in Captain America: Civil War. The film saw the synthetic android dealing with his newfound emotions and existence, gravitating towards Scarlet Witch due to their shared connection with the mind stone. “I think he has a real connection with Scarlet Witch,” says Bettany. “They both have these new burgeoning powers that they don’t understand, and they don’t know how powerful they are, and that must be kind of scary. And so I think he’s worried that they’re both dangerous. So he feels this real connection with her. And she’s a bit of a depressive at the moment so he’s just trying to cook for her.”
Despite siding with Iron Man in the film, Bettany maintains it was a decision based on logic first and foremost, as opposed to loyalty to any particular side. “He has logic in abundance,” says Bettany. “And logic does not afford any room for loyalty. New information could come to light and he might flip to Captain America’s side. But love solidifies things and provides loyalty. So if he’s there to protect mankind – or frankly, the universe – he needs to figure out what’s good about these creatures, and I think that’s the quest that you find him on. And, of course, in the comics, the relationship becomes romantic. We’ll see moving forward what happens for Vision and Wanda.”
Bettany found the dichomomy between being an all-powerful, yet naive being an interesting avenue to explore in the film. “You see him in the first movie, he’s born. He’s omnipotent, but he’s incredibly naïve. And in this movie he’s kind of beginning to take a more paternal role in the superhero family, and he’s growing at an exponential rate, and by the end of the movie he has a real emotion and real human reaction and he makes first mistake that he’s ever made.”
That mistake, of course, was taking a shot at Falcon and accidentally hitting, and paralyzing, War Machine instead. You can certainly see the pain and regret in Vision's eyes as he watches Rhodey fall from the sky, as the Vision makes his first error in judgment due to tending to an injured Wanda. “What happened there is that his judgment was clouded there by real love and affection,” says Bettany. “And he responded in a quick and thoughtless way.… I really love that the moral compass of the movie is this synthetic person who’s trying to figure out what it means to be human. It’s a neat idea, you know?”