Avengers director wanted Vision to be fully nude in Age of Ultron, says Paul Bettany

Filmmaker Joss Whedon apparently said of Bettany’s character: ‘He’s gotta have a penis’

Paul Bettany has revealed that his Marvel character Vision was almost shown fully nude in the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

Bettany currently stars alongside Elizabeth Olsen in WandaVision, a Disney+ spin-off series in which their Avengers characters are transplanted into a succession of 20th-Century sitcom parodies.

Speaking on the Lights Camera Barstool podcast, Bettany revealed that Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon had originally wanted to show his character’s penis on-screen.

In the Marvel cinematic universe, Vision is a non-human “synthezoid” who is created artificially during the events of Age of Ultron.

“I know Joss Whedon apparently really, really wanted the rendition of him, when Vision first is born, before he was clothed,” said Bettany. “He was like, 'He's gotta have a penis’.

“Actually, somewhere is the rendition of Vision's birth with these penises and they put them all up on the wall,” added the actor. “And they all went in and they sat down and Joss went, 'Yeah, I'm 100 per cent wrong. I don't need to see any of these.'”

Marvel films typically do not feature scenes of sexual activity, and no entries in the MCU have so far included scenes of male or female frontal nudity.

New episodes of WandaVision are released on Disney+ every Friday.