NEW YORK, May 8 (UPI) -- Avengers, A Beautiful Mind and A Knight's Tale icon Paul Bettany says he approached the historic role of Antonio Salieri in the limited series, Amadeus, the same way he has his other characters -- by first considering what he wants and what he is afraid of.
Premiering Friday on Starz, Joe Barton's adaptation of Peter Shaffer's stage play casts Will Sharpe as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an outrageous 25-year-old maestro who takes 18th-century Vienna by storm, much to the chagrin of Salieri (Bettany), the city's devoutly religious court composer.
"I feel like [Salieri] is such a great baddie and what makes him a great baddie is how well you're able to understand him and how broken he feels that God has chosen Mozart, not him, and how truly devastating that is for him," Bettany told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
"That's quite moving. So as awful as his behavior is, I think he's really relatable. He's like a bad-guy 'every man.'"
As Mozart grows more popular, he also spirals into madness, overwhelmed by the music in his head.
