Silas is golden

PAUL Bettany can't understand all the fuss surrounding Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, attacked by the Church and historians for suggesting conspiracy theories about Jesus being married with children. "The whole hoop-la about the book feels to me 80 per cent fabricated," says the British actor, one of the stars of the equally controversial film version.

"I remember Francis Ford Coppola made a movie where he sort of suggested that the Vatican was in cahoots with the Mafia, and nobody batted an eyelid.

"So I don't really understand what the furore is. I took the job, went to the bookstore, assuming it was in the fiction department. I walked up to that department and there I indeed found it.

"I didn't for once think to go and look in philosophy and personal growth. It didn't enter my mind. I read it in a day and a half. It's a page-turning, holiday, beach novel. Anybody who's read theological discourse knows that's not a page-turner, it's quite dull and takes a lot longer than a day and a half.

"It was always clear to me that it was sort of a big adventure story thriller. And we made it in that sort of spirit."

By "we", he means director Ron Howard and everyone else, including Hollywood star Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, involved in bringing The Da Vinci Code to the big screen. Bettany plays albino monk assassin Silas, encountered as Hanks' Harvard professor investigates a murder and follows the trail to a covert society guarding a 2,000-year-old secret.

After opening the Cannes Film Festival, the movie goes worldwide next week, no doubt accompanied by yet more protests. "I'm sure I'm going to meet really angry, indignant people - but I haven't actually met one yet," he says.

"I've only heard journalists telling me that there are lots of them out there somewhere and they're all after me. I would say this, if they are Christians, forgive me."

The actor is his usual self - tall, fair, charming, chatty and amusing. It's always a relief to meet an actor, particularly a British one, who doesn't take himself or the business too seriously. I'm sure that on set he's as conscientious and hard-working as anyone but shout "Cut", set him free to promote the movie and he's a different, more relaxed man.

He's also successful. The British thriller, Gangster No 1, was his calling card that led to US movie, A Knight's Tale, in which his performance as Geoffrey Chaucer saw him named one of Daily Variety's Ten To Watch for 2001. The Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind - as Russell Crowe's imaginary friend - and the naval adventure Master And Commander, again with Crowe, cemented his reputation. Then the romantic comedy, Wimbledon, proved he could be a leading man.

When Howard, who directed him in A Beautiful Mind, called and asked if he'd like to play the monk assassin, he didn't hesitate. "I knew what The Da Vinci Code was, I knew what a monk was, and I knew what an assassin was - so I said, 'yes, I'd do it'," he recalls. "He said he'd send me the script, and I got in my car and drove to the bookshop and bought the book. And read it in a day and a half."

Playing Silas meant adopting a whole new look. Endless experiments with contact lenses to get the eyes right were only part of it. Making someone look like an albino is an extraordinary job if you do it properly as, he says, make-up artist Veronica Brebner did. "It took two-and-a-half hours. First of all, there was a green make-up that went on, and then a paler version because they're not white, they're pale-skinned. And then you look like you're in Memoirs Of A Geisha.

"At which point, you have to draw features back on, so she would draw in veins and, of course, all the scars and the wig. Then she would airbrush. That was incredibly long just to do what you could see of me, from head to shoulders."

Then there was the hair. Having bleached his hair and "burnt holes in my head", he asked to wear a wig. There was a certain reluctance because wigs tend to look awful, but not the one Carol - "the greatest wig-maker there is" - made for Bettany.

"The director of photography didn't know it was a wig for the first day of shooting. He asked if they could cut my hair a bit shorter, and they said, 'no, it's a wig, if we do that you'll see the line'. And he said, 'it's a wig?'. It's an extraordinary job," he says.

There was a disadvantage to the wig. It was very, very white and he couldn't have any colour underneath it, so he had his head shaved. "I looked entirely ridiculous," he says of being bald off-set.

It didn't worry son Stellan, but the youngster did scream the house down when he saw dad wearing a monk's habit. Bettany rather liked the outfit. "It was kind of freeing," he says.

"I didn't have to think about it. If you can be butch and scary in what is essentially a long, brown dress and open-toed sandals, I think I'm getting somewhere."

He did get to beat up Hanks' character. "Then, in turn, I'm beaten up by Audrey Tautou, so what that says about me I don't know. She's tough," he says.

In his previous movie, Firewall, he beat up another top Hollywood star, Harrison Ford. "It's a hobby," he jokes. "In all fairness, I really tried to beat the hell out of Harrison Ford but he's incredibly tough. That man threw himself out of a window six times, and landed on his head. He got up and was happy, rebuilt the window and let me throw him through it again. That's pretty impressive at 60, whatever he is."

Stellan is his son with Oscar-winning American actress Jennifer Connelly, whom he met on A Beautiful Mind. He also has a stepson Kai. The couple, who live in New York, manage their domestic arrangements by not working at the same time, leaving one free to look after the children.

Bettany would appear to have it all - a thriving career, awards, a beautiful wife and kids. He's in a position few actors find themselves, but still finds it difficult to enjoy the moment. "I'm too neurotic for that, to be honest with you," he confesses.

"I'm still worrying about where the next one's coming from. I think 'so what's going on? Is it going to be good? Will I be able to do it, will I be able to pull it off, will it be able to fit in with the schedule of kids and wife?'.

"I should be able to hold my happiness and sit there and look at it, and have that be enough. But then I wouldn't be a twisted, ambitious actor like I am. Not really."

* The Da Vinci Code is released on Friday, after midnight screenings in some cinemas on Thursday.