Warning: The following contains massive spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story and Avengers: Infinity War!
There are some actors who are just known for having memorable deaths onscreen. While it's hard to argue that Sean Bean is still the king of agonizing character deaths, Paul Bettany is racking up an impressive death count in his own right. The actor has roles in two of this year's biggest movies, Avengers: Infinity War and Solo: A Star Wars Story and his characters die in each of them, more than once in Infinity War. Willing to answer a macabre question, Paul Bettany revealed which of his recent character deaths is his favorite, saying:
Ooooh, I don't know. I think that being murdered by the love of your life [Scarlet Witch, played by Elizabeth Olsen] because you're asking them to is pretty moving stuff that they wrote for us.
I think most people would agree with Paul Bettany's pick here. It is truly hard to argue that Vision's deaths in Infinity War don't pack a bigger emotional punch than Qi'Ra killing the villainous Dryden Vos in Solo. And while seeing Thanos crush Vision's skull and watching his body go gray is brutal, the death at the hands of Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch is by far the most heartbreaking. As Paul Bettany points out to GQ, that whole scene between the two characters is incredibly moving and it really is as great a death as any character could hope for.
Vision asking something no one should ever have to ask of a loved one and her having to commit this act of mercy and salvation is incredibly agonizing and played beautifully in the film. It is made all the more tragic when Thanos reverses it, only for Vision to be killed again and discarded by the Mad Titan, making the lovers' sacrifice all for naught. Vision's death was just one of the major gut punches in a film that ended with a barrage of them and depending on your perspective, it may not even be the saddest (Peter Parker's death is rough), but it did have the best build.
We'll have to wait and see if somehow, thanks to a Captain Marvel rescue and some Doctor Strange wizardry, Paul Bettany's Vision is brought back to life, to die another day in Avengers 4 or beyond.
As for his Star Wars demise, Dryden Vos's death in Solo didn't mean as much to us because he was a villain we had just met and we had little to no emotional attachment to him. His death, while fun, also came in a battle with Qi'Ra, who we were rooting for. Ultimately, his death was really about Qi'Ra ascending within Crimson Dawn to become the right-hand woman of the enigmatic former Sith lord, Maul.
You can check out Paul Bettany's characters dying onscreen in Infinity War and Solo, both in theaters now. Keep an eye on CinemaBlend for all the best death scenes and be sure to check out our release schedule for all of the movies hitting theaters this year.
