The actor, 55, has described the strain of spending around five months working in the UK while his family stayed in New York.
Paul Bettany has spoken about how hard it was to be apart from his wife, Jennifer Connelly, and their two children while filming the Marvel series VisionQuest. The 55-year-old told E! News on Thursday 8 October that he shot the show in the UK for about five months. The couple share a son, Stellan, 23, and a daughter, Agnes, 15. VisionQuest premieres on Disney+ on 14 October 2026.
Time away from home
Speaking in a joint interview with his co-star Ruaridh Mollica, Bettany said the separation had taken a toll. “I live in New York City, so I was away from my family for a long time,” he said. “It was really, really hard on me. I don’t know how hard it was on my family, to be honest. It was definitely hard on me. I missed them terribly.”
His family were still able to travel to the UK to see him. “They were able to come over during vacations,” he said.
A private family life
Bettany and Connelly, also 55, met while working on A Beautiful Mind in 2001 and married in Scotland in 2003. Connelly also has a son, Kai, 26, from a previous relationship. Although both actors have established careers in major films, they have generally kept their children out of the spotlight.
Connelly has occasionally shared glimpses of family life on social media. In January 2024, she posted photographs of a skiing trip to Zermatt, Switzerland, with her three children. One showed her on a ski lift between Agnes and Stellan, with the caption: “Greetings from beautiful Zermatt ❤️”.
In 2023, Connelly and Agnes appeared on the Jumbotron at the Brooklyn Nets’ final game of the season, which the team lost to the Philadelphia 76ers. The pair were cheering while Bettany leaned forward and smiled. Connelly shared an image of the moment on Instagram, captioning it: “@brooklynnets jumbotron catching my good side.” Bettany commented: “My god you were invested.”
The couple have worked together on occasion. They appeared in the 2009 film Creation, and Bettany directed Connelly in the 2014 drama Shelter. Connelly has also supported his portrayal of Vision, recently defending the character in a light-hearted discussion about Marvel superheroes.
About VisionQuest
The eight-episode series brings Bettany back as Vision, with the first two episodes released together on 14 October. The remaining episodes will follow weekly, and the finale is due on 11 November.
It completes a Marvel television trilogy that began with WandaVision in 2021 and continued with Agatha All Along in 2024. The story picks up with Vision after he was rebuilt with a new, all-white appearance at the end of WandaVision. James Spader returns as Ultron, the artificial intelligence villain from Avengers: Age of Ultron. The new series explores Vision’s identity and his attempts to understand himself, with Ultron becoming part of that journey.
