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For actor Paul Bettany, all roads lead back to the one he trudges down in A Knights Tale. The argument holds water when you consider how his American studio-feature-film debut planted the seeds for a robust screen-acting career that has put the BAFTA-nominated performer toe-to-toe with Tom Hanks (The Da Vinci Code) and Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), had him co-leading prestigious small-screen and indie dramas (Discoverys Manhunt: Unabomber, Margin Call), and launched him into some of todays largest entertainment franchises with Solo: A Star Wars Story and, of course, 13 years voicing J.A.R.V.I.S. and playing Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As the story goes, Bettanys performance as a fictionalized Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knights Tale so impressed filmmaker Brian Helgeland that when Ron Howard needed an actor to play Charles Herman, the imaginary roommate and confidant to Crowes schizophrenic mathematician in A Beautiful Mind, he threw Bettanys name up for consideration. The job was his. He met his future wife, Jennifer Connelly, on set; both Howard and Crowe became repeat Bettany collaborators down the line; and forward the world spun. Life is really curly, and you can keep doing that because its all this sort of continuous rolling kind of weird journey, Bettany reflects by Zoom from his rented London flat. The truth is, one thing always leads to another.

A Knights Tale is remembered not just for its fusing of period-specific 14th century flourishes with a contemporary pop-rock soundtrack and other modern nods, but for being a Heath Ledger breakout vehicle. The late Oscar winner stars as peasant and squire William Thatcher, who, upon his employers death, adopts the knights armor (and the name Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein) to change his stars and follow his dreams as a master swordsman and jouster. Flanked by two fellow squires (played by Alan Tudyk and Mark Addy), William stumbles upon a nude and muddied Chaucer, the esteemed Canterbury Tales author and poet of the Middle Ages. He agrees to forge documents proving Thatchers noble lineage in exchange for clothes, food, and companionship. Thus begins a rollicking buddy action-comedy-romance that made a star out of Ledger and helped solidify its supporting players as future screen stalwarts.

In recognition of the films 20th anniversary, Bettany fresh off his run on Disney+ and Marvels WandaVision took a break from filming the upcoming A Very British Scandal (in which he and Claire Foy dramatize the notoriously contentious divorce of the duke and duchess of Argyll) to reminisce on his time filming, his intoxicated (and admittedly blurry) bonding with Ledger and Helgeland, and the wrap present that to this day makes him blush in memory.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of filming A Knights Tale 20 years ago?Well, what year was it?

It came out in May 2001, so you mustve been filming in 2000.The first thing that comes to mind is Brian Helgeland, who really supported me and had tried to get me on a previous film [called The Sin Eater, which was later made in 2003 as The Order, reuniting A Knights Tale actors Ledger, Addy, and Shannyn Sossamon without Bettany], but the studio didnt want me.

This was for The Sin Eater?Yeah, and the studio didnt want me. He fought and fought and fought and then he decided he was going to write me something that wasnt the lead so that he could sneak me in. So he did, and I auditioned, and the studio didnt want me. And he flew me over to meet with everybody, and I auditioned. They looked at the tape and decided they didnt want me. [Laughs] So I went home, and I came out again; he flew me out and I auditioned again. And they decided they didnt want me. And finally, Brian said, All right, Im not gonna make the movie. And I think that they had such a going concern with Heath, who was suddenly a big star, I guess, from 10 Things I Hate About You is that what its called? that they didnt want to lose the picture. So they thought, All right, well let him have this gangly, blond actor from England. Im really glad they did let him!

What was your read of the situation when you were getting that feedback?I think I was too young and naive to have any thoughts regarding it except to think I wasnt good enough.

What was it that developed your relationship with Brian in the first place?The story Brian told me was that I had sent in a video I went to a casting director I dont know who it was in England, and I tested. I did an audition and I sent it off into the world and then didnt think about it nor did he because he didnt get to see it. And then he found the video in some office in L.A. for Sin Eater, and he was like, Oh, I like this guy! Whos this guy? And then he flew over to London and did a proper screen test with a crew and everything and God bless him, I dont know why. I mean, I guess we just really enjoyed each others company and he recognized in me, maybe I dont know! Maybe he recognized somebody like himself who was trying to sort of, like in A Knights Tale, change their stars. Plus, we have a shared love of the Beatles.

I had assumed you might have been friends beforehand, but it turns out he was just a fan of yours.Oh, no! I hadnt even met an American at that point.

Looking at the way A Knights Tale really plays with genre and modernizes some aspects while keeping others period-specific was that playfulness appealing to you? What made you want to play this character in the first place?Oh, Ben having a job was appealing to me! I was just trying to pay my rent at that point in my life and just get experience. I fell in love with being in front of cameras. Well, let me clarify: I hate being in front of still cameras, but [I loved] being in front of movie cameras, and I loved everything about being on a set, and I had a sort of voracious appetite for knowledge about how its done. And so I was just excited to go and play in another movie.

What kind of research, if any, went into playing Chaucer?Theres not really a lot you can do, except reading The Canterbury Tales. Theres not a great deal of source material on that, so no, I was just sort of making it up as I went along, I think.

For your first scene in the film, youre butt naked, for lack of a better phrase. Youre covered in mud. Was that a daunting ask for you to bare it all on screen?I didnt really think about it at that point. The idea was: If you could pull off being naked and covered in mud and still have a smile on your face, the audience is probably going to love you. That was, Im sure, Brians idea for writing it like that.

No, I wasnt daunted at walking naked I was much more daunted at I remember costume coming to me, and I went, Oh! Ive got a costume? I thought I was naked. And they brought my costume, which was a Day-Glo yellow sock.

I can imagine what that was for Well, I didnt! I couldnt! I said, Whats this for? And they said, Um, its to put on your penis. And I said, Well, why would I put a Day-Glo yellow sock on my penis? And they went, In case you feel embarrassed. And I went, The one thing more embarrassing than walking down the street naked in front of people is walking down the street with a Day-Glo sock on your penis. So we didnt go with the sock. Actually, my wrap gift from Brian Helgeland was because it was all on film all the cut footage of my penis in a film tin that must be somewhere in my house, never to have been shown.

Have you revisited that footage, or its just good to know its in a safe place?Well, you know, I havent a projector, so I never really thought about revisiting it.

Speaking of costumes, a lot of people love the jacket that costume designer Caroline Harris had you in as Chaucer. What are the chances thats still hanging in your closet?I dont know that in real life that jacket would have worked on me. I cant imagine a situation where I might find myself wearing that jacket. Not to in any way deride the jacket the jackets marvelous, in a medieval-pop comedy. But I dont think, walking down the streets of New York City it doesnt feel like a good choice for me, sartorially speaking.

Tell me a little bit about these big introductory speech scenes before the jousting tournaments. Howd you go about memorizing those lines? Was anything ad-libbed?I remember on the first day, there was a big list of names I just had to recite a bunch of names, and I just couldnt learn it. I said, Look, youre just gonna have to put it on the wall behind this actors head so I can do it. Because theres no logic to it, and I couldnt learn it. I remember all the producers getting very worried, like, Hes got these huge speeches coming up! And the difference between huge speeches and lists is that I dont really have to I dont know what to say about this because I know some people who do learn lines. I dont ever learn my lines. It never comes to the point, really, where Im learning lines because they just start sticking to whatever the idea of the speech is. They just start sticking, and hopefully they stick in the right order.

There wasnt really improvisation. But there was a lot with the speeches of me going to Brian saying, Oh, what about this? and him going away with that idea and rewriting. But Brian is a really great writer; Ive never felt the need to mess with his words.

At this point, there was a lot of buzz around Heaths career after 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot. But you were 28, 29; he was 20, 21. Was that a felt age difference, or were you quick friends? What can you tell us about working with him?I can tell you that he just had a light that shined off him. He was a movie star, you know? Just immediately, you met him, and he shone, as you lot say, and it was very hard not to fall in love with him I think for anybody. He was a very playful, joyous spirit.

For the two weeks prior to filming, Ive read, you, Heath, Brian, and the rest of the cast had a rehearsal period that turned into mostly drinking and bonding in Prague, is that right?Yeah, its a little blurry. Or maybe I was a little blurry. But yeah, we became a really tight-knit group that really enjoyed each others company, and it was just a really funny time. You can imagine: We were all young and in the Czech Republic all together having a ball. And then at some point, it turned out we had to start working, but it never really felt like work at all.

My understanding from there is that it was also Brian who put you on Ron Howards radar for A Beautiful Mind, and then you can connect the dots from there to several other projects, and to several personal developments in your life including meeting your wife, Jennifer Connelly. Is it funny for you to be able to link it all back to A Knights Tale?Theres so much of that, though. Life is really curly and you can keep doing that because its all this sort of continuous rolling kind of weird journey. The truth is, one thing always leads to another, so yes, I believe that is true. But other things are true: I remember Peter Weir had an issue when my name was put up for being in Master and Commander, with my being blond. [He] couldnt believe that I could look brunette, and he really wanted the character to be brunette. So my manager sneaked into his hotel and left a video of me in another film where I was a brunette outside his door. So, you know, theres all of those stories.

A Knights Tale also showcases your comedic skills, which you havent always had the chance to flex until something like WandaVision, where youre playing with all those sitcom mini-genres. Is comedy something you wouldve liked to explore a bit more in your career or that you hope to in the future?I dont really think like that. There are certain sorts of comedy that I just dont think Id be any good at at all. But I mostly respond to a mixture of the material just being really good and speaking to me or a sort of quite bullish desire to do something thats very opposite of what Ive just done. And I cant shake that. Im not sure its particularly helpful for a young actor because I sort of always wanted to be a character actor and play lots of different sorts of roles. But I happened to be coming up at a time when branding yourself was really happening and you branded yourself as this sort of an actor. And I just didnt want to.

Im hoping its going to pay dividends now as Im not in my 20s any longer, but I cant shake that thing, you know? Right now is an example, in point of fact: I finished WandaVision, where Im playing Vision, whos an incredibly sort of warm, Jimmy Stewart sort of character. And now Im doing this thing with Claire Foy where Im a misogynistic drunk duke whos incredibly cold and cut off. So I still have that instinct.

As a final question for you, we really are taking a walk down memory lane here: If you could give your younger self any piece of advice, something that youve learned over the years that wouldve been helpful back then, what would it be?Id say this: 90 percent, maybe more, 95 percent, of the things that youre gonna spend the next 30 years worrying about are never gonna happen, and if you worry about each and every single one of them, youre going to be exhausted when a real crisis comes up. So keep your worry powder dry, and enjoy being young. I think that being young is almost wasted on the youth, you know? Its so vital, its such a vital time. I really try and teach that to my kids. Its extraordinary. Its just extraordinary, and the world is opening up for you, and it will open up for you. Dont worry so much.

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Paul Bettany Answers Every Question We Have About A Knights Tale - Vulture

Decades before Spotify, Pandora, and even satellite radio, terrestrial (land-based) AM and FM radio reigned supreme. Many listeners, including Utica resident Ron Robinson, idolized the disc jockeys just as much as the artists they played.

Robinson, 51, is working on a documentary film entitled Radio Dayz The Movie, which focuses on the history of radio, including the early days of Detroit radio. (The film) tells the story of radio through the people who worked in radio, he said.

Robinson interviewed several well-known radio personalities such as Paul W. Smith, Dick Purtain, Fred Jacobs, Dick Kernen, and more for the film. Robinson, who worked for WJR for 20 years before starting his own production company, has several connections in the industry. He started interviewing for the documentary in 2013.

Most people think of radio, they think of New York, California, and Chicago, and rightfully so. But, Detroit has been an important and ground-breaking city for the medium of radio, Robinson said.

The documentary is a chronological look at the history of radio, starting with the first radio stations. It also takes aim at the first radio celebrity, Fr. Charles Coughlin. The Detroit-area priest took to the airways in the 1920s and eventually garnered an audience of 30 million to his weekly radio show. Coughlin would later become a polarizing figure as World War II approached. Hes on the wrong side of history, if you will, Robinson said.

Other notable glimpses into radios history are also featured in the film, including President Franklin D. Roosevelts Fireside Chats and the healing effect these popular radio segments would have on a nation crippled by The Great Depression and the war.

Then I go and talk about the 1940s and 1950s and what Elvis and the Beatles mean to radio. Theres a part about how radio changed when TV became the mainstay in everybodys house, Robinson said.

Robinsons podcast Radio Dayz! delves into the history of radio as well and has served as a promotional piece for the documentary. What we do is let listeners in on what happened behind the scenes in radio, he said. Most people know their (radio personalities) voices, but not their story.

The documentary has served as a labor of love for Robinson. And although it is not yet complete, he plans to wrap up the project soon. He had hoped to finish in time for WWJs 100th anniversary but was unable to interview key radio personalities due to COVID-19 restrictions.

He said it is important to preserve radios history for future generations, especially today when few people even own a radio. There are so many stories people dont know and I want to share that with people because I think they will be better off and more enriched and appreciate where this country has been, he said.

When the film is complete, possibly later this year, Robinson hopes to have it available to stream.

This is Robinsons fourth documentary film. He also produced It Takes a Village, Networking, Your Business The Movie, and If You Build It, They Will Come. The later film focuses on the development of Jimmy Johns Field in Utica.

In addition to making documentary films, Robinson is a photographer and aerial/drone media pilot. His production company, Ron Robinson Studios, also offers video marketing services for businesses.

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Utica man producing film about the history of radio - The Oakland Press

All three appointments must be confirmed by the Florida Senate.

In a slew of Friday appointments, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced three new appointees to the Southwest Florida Water Management District Governing Board.

DeSantis announced, in a press release, the appointment of William Hogarth, Paul Jack Bispham and Johnnie Hall to the districts Governing Board.

All three appointments must be confirmed by the Florida Senate.

Hogarth, from Treasure Island, is the former director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography at the University of South Florida. Previously, Hogarth served as dean of the University of South Floridas College of Marine Science and as the assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Services at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hogarth earned his bachelors and masters degrees in biology from the University of Richmond and a doctorate degree in marine fisheries from North Carolina State University.

Bispham, lives in Myakka City and owns and operates Red Bluff Plantation and Pauls Parrish. Previously Bispham owned and operated Bayside Sod.

Bispham has served on the Southwest Florida Water Management District Governing Board before. He has been a member since 2019 and previously served on the Manasota Basin Board. Bispham has also served on the Sarasota Planning Commission and is a member of the Sarasota Sportsmens Association and The Argus Foundation. Bispham earned his bachelors degree in agriculture from the University of Florida.

Hall, from Auburndale, is a Cattle Rancher and owns Polk Community Association Management. Previously, he served two terms on the Polk County Board of County Commissioners.

Hall is also a member of the Polk County Cattlemans Association and a Registered Environmental Manager with the National Registry of Environmental Professionals.

Hall earned his bachelors degree in business administration from Saint Leo University.

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Gov. DeSantis appoints three to the Southwest Florida Water Management District Governing Board - Florida Politics

The truth is out there at the 40th annual Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival.

In a handful of outdoor screenings and hundreds of online ones, the festival shows dozens of films from 70 countries.

The May 13-23 event boasts thrillers, comedies and experimental efforts, but many of the best I've screened in advance are documentaries. The Holocaust-themed "Love It Was Not" and music docs "The Sparks Brothers" and "Karen Dalton: In My Own Time" find inventive ways to explore their very different subjects. Even the more traditional "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It," made for PBS' "American Masters" series, uses animation to stretch the traditional bounds of nonfiction filmmaking.

This year's festival is the first without its co-founder, Twin Cities film icon Al Milgrom, who died in December. The event pays tribute to him in the form of an annual Milgrom series, this year spotlighting movies made by his Oscar-nominated pal Agnieszka Holland, who'll also appear in a live Zoom call. She's one of several top filmmakers in the fest, which includes Germany's Christian Petzold, an MSPIFF regular whose fairy tale-derived latest is called "Undine," and France's Franois Ozon, whose "Summer of '85" is a nostalgic love story.

Closer to home, MSPIFF includes several made-in-Minnesota projects, starting with "The Claw." Based on a play that premiered at St. Paul's History Theatre in 2007, "The Claw" is Philip Harder's portrait of pro wrestler Baron von Raschke (aka Jim Raschke), largely seen through the eyes of his adoring kids.

Another Minnesota icon, explorer Will Steger, is featured in "After Antarctica." It's a look back at Steger's 1989 trip across the continent. Short film "Ignited States," meanwhile, examines the year of activism that has followed in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

That's just scratching the surface. Your best bet is to explore the festival's site and plunge in. Here are thoughts on the titles I've seen, beginning with my favorite:

"Love It Was Not" Historical documentaries often lack footage of the time they're trying to recapture. Writer/director Maya Sarfaty's ingenious solution is to cut up still images as if they're paper dolls and manipulate them into different settings and actions. The technique gives the film an elegiac, handmade quality that amplifies the reminiscences of elderly Auschwitz survivors who recall a Slovakian Jewish woman's shocking relationship with her SS captor. He's also featured and while he says it was love, she describes something else.

"My Donkey, My Lover and I" Fans of the French comedy series "Call My Agent!" will recognize irresistible Laure Calamy as the lovelorn assistant on that Netflix show. She's even more irresistible here as a quirky teacher whose smug, married lover cancels their vacation because he's taking a mountain hiking trip with his family. She follows, inexpertly spying on her unworthy lover while trying to wrangle the donkey she accidentally hired to accompany her on the hike. The ass' name is Vladimir. The donkey's name is Patrick.

"Karen Dalton: In My Own Time" "Whether you like it or not, you have to enter her world, and it's a despairing world," says Nick Cave near the start of a biographical documentary that, indeed, describes quite a bit of sadness. Dalton was a wildly original folkie Bob Dylan called "my favorite singer," but her personal life was a nightmare. Featuring tons of well-identified music, the compassionate doc does exactly what you'd hope it would. I'd never heard of Dalton but, after seeing the film, I want to listen to every note she ever recorded.

"The Whaler Boy" The Russian drama, a kind of brutal fairy tale, is endlessly surprising. Two teenage boys grow up on the Bering Strait. One longs to go to America, with Alaska a tantalizing 70 miles away. The other has a different so-near-yet-so-far dream. He has fallen in love on an internet porn site. The Venice Film Festival prize winner opens like a humdrum character study but morphs into a stirring story of immigration, compassion and home.

"Ane Is Missing" Borrowing some of the observational style of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne ("Two Days, One Night"), the Spanish drama tracks the fraught relationship of security guard Lide, who works for a company building a train route, and daughter Ane, who protests against the train. The politics are compelling but what drives the movie is the role-switching between a principled teenager and her impulsive mom, who gave birth to her daughter before she knew how to be an adult.

"The Sparks Brothers" Director Edgar Wright ("Scott Pilgrim vs. the World") geeks out in a love letter to the cult band, still going strong in its fifth, hit-free decade. It's an inventive doc even the interviews are cleverly photographed and brothers Ron and Russell Mael clearly still get a bang out of each other. There's lots of period footage alongside contemporary interviews that reveal the band's huge influence on many top pop acts.

"Dream Horse" It's such a conventional movie that you can name half a dozen others where a community in Great Britain unites behind an inspiring cause ("Waking Ned Devine," "The Full Monty"). But darned if it doesn't work again. Toni Collette plays a hardworking, impoverished woman in picturesque Wales who decides to breed a racehorse, which she does with the help of her neighbors and results in many twists. All of it might not seem credible except it really happened.

"Hotel Coppelia" "This movie is for the unsung women who resisted the foreign invasion," reads the dedication of this handsome drama. It's set in a Dominican Republic brothel, whose residents/employees are a bright, varied bunch. Their home is a surreal oasis from the civil war ripping apart their country until soldiers first Dominicans, then Americans bust in.

"Mickey on the Road" The story is familiar a road trip leads two young women to surprising revelations. But when you're as assured a visual stylist as Taiwanese writer/director Mian-Mian Lu, who cares? On a guess, she's a fan of Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express" and its candy-colored, neon-lit images. Lu's trippy visuals peak in a scene backdropped by a gilt-and-bejeweled dragon headboard, in front of which appears pink-haired Gin Gin. She stands behind a window that has streams of golden syrup drizzling down, prompting her to begin licking all of it up.

"The Claw" Wrestling legend Baron von Raschke is the subject of a loving documentary, directed by Philip Harder and produced by the grappler's son Karl. Sweet recollections from the producer and sister Heidi (full disclosure both are former co-workers) paint a dual portrait of the brash, "German"-accented Baron von Raschke in the ring and tender, supportive, Nebraska-native Jim Raschke at home.

"Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It" The portrait of the EGOT-winner inspires by showing how often she has reinvented her career to come back from the brink of tragedies, including a suicide attempt after Marlon Brando dumped her. It's standard soul-baring but Moreno is unusually candid, especially when she revisits lows such as being raped by her agent and not firing him because "I thought so little of myself."

"Hollywood Fringe" The latest from former Minnesotans Wyatt McDill and Megan Huber turns on an interesting idea. The art and life of Los Angeles actors Travis (Justin Kirk) and Samantha (Jennifer Prediger) are so intertwined that we can't always tell if we're watching their home life or a fringe festival play inspired by it. The plot occasionally is too "Inside Hollywood" but most of the jokes land.

"Devil's Pie: D'Angelo" The story of the notoriously sexy singer, who virtually disappeared for 14 years, should be more interesting than it is in this slow-moving, unrevealing documentary. Long story short: The product of a churchgoing clan was not comfortable with his image and he did way too many drugs.

Chris Hewitt 612-673-4367

Minneapolis St. Paul International Film FestivalWhen: May 13-23.Where: Como Lakeside Pavilion, St. Paul, and at mspfilm.org.Tickets: $10-$15. Multi-film passes also available at mspfilm.org.

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Twin Cities' biggest film fest includes 'Claw,' hits from around the world - Minneapolis Star Tribune