This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

For years, Paul Bettany provided the disembodied voice of Jarvis, Tony Stark's all-knowing and pretty powerful computer program, in the Iron Man and Avengers films.

In last year's "Avengers: Age of Ultron," though, the English actor finally appeared as the Jarvis-driven, pretty all-powerful android Vision, all red-faced, caped and latex-costumed. On Friday, the Marvel Comics hero is back onscreen and really showing what he's got in "Captain America: Civil War," which should be a dream come true for any lad.

There is that realm, though, called Be Careful What You Wish For.

"Yeah, you know, you're being paid handsomely," Bettany, 44, mock sighs about his Vision get-up. "There's a bunch of very nice people helping you into it. All-in-all, it took about two hours and 15 minutes soup to nuts. Three people worked on my head and there was usually one, very intimate person helping me get into the costume."

Suiting up every day was just the start. As the title indicates, "Civil War" pits various Avengers against one another, and the levitating, superstrong, sometimes incorporeal Vision gets in the thick of it, especially during the central brawl set at a German airport but primarily shot on an Atlanta backlot last summer.

"That scene, which is an extraordinary accomplishment, when I first read it on the page I went, 'My God, I've directed a movie and I have no idea how they're going to do this!' " Bettany reveals. "It was filmed over a long period of time and spread-out moments. I can tell you, I was hot. Oh my God, if I put you in this suit, you'd realize you were hot everywhere, but you were definitely hotter in Atlanta than anywhere else."

Also, well, wanna make a hung-up play on words here?

"The suits are really restrictive," he reports. "You've done a lot of fight training and movement training and all of that, then you put on a suit that changes everything. Then you're in a harness and you're flying around, suspended by your testicles and trying to look noble and like a superhero. It's not the most comfortable situation in the world, but it is extraordinary when you then go watch the results."

Bettany describes his walking database as more grown up than some of the flesh-and-blood Avengers, but naïve in nonlogical subjects like loyalty and love. He strives to understand them and winds up doing most of his one-on-one interactions with Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch. She happens to be on the other side of the civil war, but as fans of the comics know, she and the synthetic man wind up married with children (she's a witch, after all, so nothing's impossible).

"The thing that separates Vision from Spock and all that stuff is that his endeavor is to become more human," Bettany observes. "What's really interesting is, and it's a Be Careful What You Wish For moment, is that the moment that he starts to experience passion, it clouds his judgment and he makes a bad call."

Where he and Olsen will go in future Marvel movies is still unknown. Bettany's real-life wife, Jennifer Connelly, however, appeared in the 2003 "Hulk" movie. And while there were no Marvel comic books in her husband's London youth, he's learned to appreciate them.

" 'Iron Man' was when I started getting introduced to that," he says of the 2008 film that kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe Vision now inhabits. "I had no idea how rich and textured the world was."

A Vision movie would add intriguing new textures, but no one, including Bettany, has heard about such a project yet.

"I'm very fortunate that that's above my pay grade," Bettany says, not wanting to wish.

@bscritic on Twitter