00:00Humanity still infuriates him, as it should, as it infuriates us as well.
00:06I walked into the chemistry room and I looked at him and I was like,
00:09yeah, I want you to be my dad, please.
00:11James Bader, hello, sir.
00:13Hello.
00:14Congratulations on the show.
00:1611 years since Avengers Age of Ultron.
00:20He's a completely reformed good guy now, I assume, is that correct?
00:26Have you seen the show?
00:27I've seen the show.
00:28I've seen the first episode of the show and obviously I've got my own feelings towards it.
00:31It hasn't been much of a reformation.
00:33I like to think that there's always a chance.
00:37Yes.
00:38What's your relationship like?
00:39A page has been turned.
00:40Yeah, a page.
00:41We don't know if it's turned to a much worse page, but it's certainly a page.
00:44You'll find out.
00:46What's your relationship been like with the character?
00:48Because you've had a number of iconic roles, in my view, both mainstream and kind of cult classics.
00:53We're talking Sex, Lies, Videotapes.
00:54Stargate was a huge fan of that.
00:56The Secretary, massive fan of that.
00:58The Blacklist, of course.
00:59But the MCU in itself has become such a behemoth as a thing.
01:03How is it strange for you to have a kind of up until now digitized character become such a huge
01:10part of your oeuvre, so to speak?
01:13I don't know if I'm as conscious of any of that as you would be considering your profession compared to
01:22what my profession is.
01:24I just don't know, or relative to my profession.
01:27I just don't know if I'm, you know, since I finished Age of Ultron, that came right at the end.
01:35I think I wrapped the first season of The Blacklist and left days later to come over to London and
01:43start on Age of Ultron.
01:46And then I finished Age of Ultron and went back to New York City and in a week, 10 days,
01:53started the second season of Blacklist and did that for 10 years.
01:57And so I've been busy since Age of Ultron and then I finished The Blacklist and the first thing I
02:05end up doing is the other bookend of this show.
02:12So I think most of my reflection upon all of that has actually been while doing the press for the
02:20show.
02:21And so that's when those things sort of sink in.
02:24But like, for instance, my exposure to, you know, the Marvel Universe is limited.
02:31You know, when I'm working, I don't go to the movies.
02:33I'm not watching television shows.
02:35I'm working with material, you know, huge volume of material.
02:40So I really.
02:44So for me, the next iteration of Ultron and and really the next installment of the Marvel Universe is then
02:55Vision Quest.
02:56Rory.
02:57Hello.
02:58Let's let's let's clear this up.
02:59This can be your Saoirse Ronan moment.
03:01So nobody makes this mistake going forward.
03:03Rory, it's it looks like Rur, Ruridge, like Ruridge, but it's Scottish.
03:09It is.
03:09It's like a Gaelic, Gaelic name.
03:14And it's Rurie.
03:15Spelt like brewery.
03:17Where you make beer without the B.
03:19And that's how you remember it.
03:21Yes.
03:21And I only discovered that like little example like two years ago.
03:27And I feel like life has gotten easier since then.
03:29Yeah, I bet.
03:30Whereabouts in Scotland are you from?
03:31I'm from Edinburgh.
03:32Edinburgh.
03:32I remember it nice.
03:33I love Edinburgh.
03:33I grew up with some government.
03:35Really?
03:35In Glasgow.
03:36No way.
03:36And where did you grow up?
03:37I grew up in Preston.
03:39Preston.
03:39But let's not make this about me.
03:41Now, I always find these very fascinating when I talk to people who have just joined a huge franchise like
03:46this, especially when it's involved in kind of comic book lore.
03:49Because it goes so deep and there's so many people out there who have been looking at every detail going,
03:56is this going to happen?
03:56So, Thomas Shepard, Tommy Maximoff, Speed, there's a lot to pack in there.
04:04How much can we actually talk about?
04:06How much can we actually share without someone from Marvel appearing with Sniper over a hill?
04:13It depends when you're releasing this interview.
04:16That's a good point.
04:17I'm not entirely sure.
04:18Let's go with the start of the series.
04:20At the start of the series, how much can we share with people?
04:24We can share quite a lot.
04:25I mean, we meet Vision after WandaVision, after the events that happened there, you know.
04:33In WandaVision, he was the Red Vision and then the White Vision is sent to kill him and shut down
04:38Wanda's hex.
04:39But in the final moments of that show, spoilers, I guess, if you've not seen WandaVision.
04:45Yeah, it's fine.
04:47Red Vision grants White Vision all of his memories, all of his life.
04:51And so we meet Vision trying to understand who he is and how he is different from the Red Vision.
04:58And at the start of this journey of him kind of on the run and figuring out himself,
05:05someone captures a boy, me, who is supposedly his son.
05:12And that hits him head on because it validates all of these dreams and all of these other things that
05:18Vision is trying to push away.
05:19And it also validates all of my dreams of a father who is a robot and a mother who is
05:26a witch.
05:26And I spent my whole life prior to this trying to reject those ideas or being told that I've lost
05:34my mind, you know.
05:36And so you meet my character as a young grifter, a young pickpocket in London as Thomas Shepard,
05:44but he's battling these things, but they're very much like repressed and hidden away and like a nightmare for him.
05:51And when he ends up with Vision, he's forced to confront all that.
05:54And so is Vision and they use each other to figure out who they are and go on that journey
06:00of self-accepting.
06:01God, that's very good. You've managed to do that really well.
06:04Really?
06:04Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was there going, okay, what's he going to...
06:07I'll wait for the hate comments.
06:08Well, thanks for ruining it, Paul.
06:10Spoilers, spoilers.
06:11It's interesting how when you took the role of Ultron, it was showing kind of AI as this kind of
06:19like scary but fun novelty.
06:20And now just a decade later, it is such a part of our lives and the way that the world
06:26is changing, the way our day-to-day lives is changing.
06:28Yes, the thing that's interesting, though, is that there is Ultron and this is, you know, he's isolated up in
06:36that attic.
06:37I mean, really the only person who visits him is Vision, really.
06:41The AIs downstairs, to Ultron, they're just sort of an annoyance and to them, he's just a dangerous troublemaker, you
06:49know.
06:51And probably fairly enigmatic to them because they don't really interact with him a lot until the show starts and,
06:56you know, there's crises, you know.
06:58But I think Ultron really is much more interested in humanity than he is in AI.
07:07Whereas I think in Age of Ultron, he really was this exciting and excited, you know, fascinated with himself and
07:18fascinated with, you know, he was constantly evolving, you know, changing.
07:23You know, Vision was supposed to be another iteration of him, sort of, you know.
07:28And now he's sort of, he's almost become jaded like the rest of us.
07:33Well, he's really, he's really taken notice of humanity and embraced it.
07:40And humanity still infuriates him, as it should, as it infuriates us as well.
07:46It must be quite exciting doing a kind of deep dive, especially with the MCU in a place where it
07:51is at the moment.
07:51It's, it's, we're about to go into kind of a doomsday and that whole block, which is kind of a
07:57big, almost like a reset, they say.
08:00Yeah.
08:00We know they've had plans and talked about things like Young Avengers and all these other characters.
08:05Your brother.
08:06My brother.
08:07Who has already been sort of reintroduced in Agatha all along.
08:12It must be difficult not to look ahead and be like, I wonder where this can go.
08:15I wonder what, in 10 years' time, if I'm going to be sat here and talking about another massive, some
08:19huge film that I've just done and this huge journey I've been on with these characters.
08:23Yeah, totally.
08:24You, you, you think about it and it's exciting.
08:27But, and that's the beauty of the MCU.
08:29You know, Paul started out just voicing Jarvis in Iron Man's head.
08:32And now he's got his own show.
08:35So here's to hoping.
08:37And speaking, speaking about Paul, I love the look you've got.
08:40It reminds me a little bit of a young Mr. Bettany.
08:44Kind of his sort of like night tale era.
08:47What's he like as a dad then?
08:50He's a great dad.
08:51I literally, I walked into the chemistry room and I looked at him and I was like, yeah, I want
08:56you to be my dad.
08:57Please.
08:58And, yeah, he's brilliant.
09:00I mean, even in the show and our real life relationship kind of fell into that kind of father-son
09:06dynamic.
09:07And, you know, when I met Paul's son for the first time, it was like, you're my brother.
09:12And, yeah, it's great.
09:13I mean, he's got every answer to every question I could ask about the MCU and this industry.
09:19And he's taught me a lot of great lessons.
09:22He's an absolute delight to work with.
09:26And brings so much to the set every single day and to every scene.
09:31And we actually work in somewhat similar ways.
09:38And I loved it.
09:40I could keep working with him.
09:41I just could, yeah, I could keep working with him.
09:44Well, I think you've got fantastic chemistry in this.
09:47We don't know what's going to happen towards the end of the series.
09:48But I hope we get more opportunities, whether in this or something else, to see you guys kind of go
09:53to total.
09:53Yeah, that would be fun.
