James Spader And Paul Bettany Talk Creating Ultron And Vision In Avengers: Age Of Ultron

“You know, the technology has changed quite a bit in that prior to I think maybe our film — I’m not entirely sure — if you were a computer-generated animated character like he is, then you would be on the set, sort of off-camera and you’d be there for the other actors to play across from and so on, and obviously you would voice it,” explained Spader, “but your physicality would be captured in the motion-capture stage after principal photography — or concurrently when they didn’t need you on set. In this case, I was wearing a fractal suit and big sort of backpack with all sorts of things. Also, depending on what stage of Ultron it was, I also had these sort of braces for putting his body in different positions and weights and balances and so on — and then a big head rig that had headlights that were circular lights with cameras that were recording my face all the time. Then I was standing on the ground but there was also a rod that came out of my backpack and went up to eight feet tall or however tall he is, and up there were also two little red eyes so that the actors playing across played to that as his height. Except in certain cases where the blocking was such where we would be able to play on the same plane.”

He said that an exception was that he got to perform “head to head” with The Vision, since the characters were meant to be the same height. Paul Bettany, though, was in mostly practical makeup.

“There’s some CG going on with my eyes,” Bettany said, “but I’m wearing that stuff.”

You can see the full interview — which actually includes a number of other interviews, and the Ultron/Vision stuff around the 6:45 mark — below.

Marvel Studios presents Avengers: Age of Ultron, the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to the Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.

Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision. Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963.

Avengers: Age of Ultron hits theaters on May 1, 2015.