'Snowpiercer' actor Jennifer Connelly was Paul Bettany's teenage crush before they fell in love at first sight
Celebrity crushes are always a bit of a fantasy. When the 15-year-old Paul Bettany watched the 16-year-old Jennifer Connelly in the 1986 movie 'Labyrinth', opposite David Bowie, he vowed to marry her. Little did he know that his fantasy 'wife' was going to become the real love of his life. However, there is no denying that it was 'attraction at first sight' for both Connelly and Bettany after meeting on the sets of 'A Beautiful Mind'.
According to Connelly, the connection was electric, immediately. “I remember meeting him at the first read-through... I thought, ‘Hmm, he’s really good that guy,'” she said. Bettany was over the moon about meeting his crush. He said in an interview, he had "never been this close to someone that beautiful before". But at the time, Paul was dating 'A Knight’s Tale' co-star Laura Fraser and Jennifer, who already had a three-year-old son, Kai, with photographer David Dugan, was 'rumored' to be dating Russell Crowe. Bettany never spoke about his crush and when the film wrapped, the pair went their separate ways. "Clearly we noticed each other and clearly we liked each other,” said Connelly but said the timing was just not right. It would take a national disaster to bring them together - specifically the 9/11 attacks.
Speaking to the late and great Larry King, Bettany narrated how he was in Tuscany buying groceries when he witnessed the horrific event unfold on TV at a shop. "At that moment, my mind was changed forever and I ran back to this house and spent two days trying to call this woman that I sort of barely knew. And I remember very clearly thinking to myself 'what are you doing?' I realized I was in love. So, I finally got her on the phone and I said I am coming over and let's get married. And that's really what happened, we had never dated." he said about his sudden proposal. Working with her gut instinct, Connelly agreed to marry him and Bettany went to the States to be with her.
Connelly says she fell head over heels for him when he first serenaded her by playing the guitar. “He started playing guitar and it was all over,” she said about why she decided he was the one. She wasn't wrong. The two have one of the most enduring and loving marriages in fickle Hollywood. They were married on January 1, 2003, in a private family ceremony in Scotland. Bettany described the wedding as "Victorian" because they hadn't lived together before the wedding. "I was like a stalker really,” joked Paul about the rushed wedding. “We got married really quickly because I thought she had a three to six-month window before she sees through the accent. She went to Yale and I left school at 16 so I knew she’d work out that I hadn’t read Proust.”
The couple has two children -- a son, Stellan, and a daughter, Agnes Lark. Connelly chose to have a home water birth for Agnes Lark in a birthing pool. In addition, there is Kai, from Connelly's previous relationship with photographer David Dugan.
Bettany and Connelly chose to live in New York, first in the Tribeca region and then moving to Brooklyn Heights as their family expanded. Besides their marriage, both have continued to find creative satisfaction together at work too -- fitting given how they met.
They worked on four films together which included Bettany's directorial debut 'Shelter' in which Connelly played a heroin addict. Connelly spoke about being directed by her husband as said the experience only strengthened their relationship, bringing them closer together. “I felt I had a lot of freedom to explore. Because he’s my husband and I trust him so much, I felt very safe. I feel very creatively aligned with him. We are drawn to similar types of films and filmmaking,” she said about the experience.
Connelly also appreciates that Bettany is the more outgoing of the two since she is the "shy" one. "I’m more reserved. I can be kind of shy in a group,” Connelly once said about the dynamics of their relationship, with Bettany being the people-magnet. “I mean, I manage it pretty well, but he’s much more outgoing than I am,” she added.
Bettany's career has taken off since appearing as Vision in Marvel's 'The Avengers' multi-billion dollar franchise with Connelly picking smaller budget projects like 'Snowpiercer'. But this hasn't put a strain on the relationship like it often does in Hollywood marriages between actors.
Bettany, 49, said the last year in quarantine was spent relishing homelife with Connelly and their kids. But it has also meant embracing all of its challenges, especially elementary homeschooling during the pandemic. "I'm still quite an active dad because I've got a 9-year-old," he said in an interview. "There's a lot of staring at a math problem, bewildered, and asking Jennifer to solve it for me".
