When the actor Paul Bettany set out to write and direct his first feature film, the upcoming “Shelter,” inspiration came from an unlikely source: a homeless couple who lived outside his apartment building. After Hurricane Sandy hit, Bettany never saw them again. “I’m not a religious man, but I grew up a Catholic, and my father always used to say to me, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’” Bettany says. He was keen to explore the disparity between that sense of empathy and what he sees as today’s dismissive view of homelessness. “Now there’s this sort of slightly aggressive response,” he says. “This idea that you must have done something to bring yourself this low, and you’re responsible for it.” In their research for “Shelter,” Bettany and his wife, Jennifer Connelly, who stars in the film, became involved with the organization Coalition for the Homeless; tomorrow they will host its annual ArtWalk gala, at which works from such artists as Cindy Sherman, Chuck Close and Louise Bourgeois will be auctioned off. (Pre-bids can also be submitted online at Paddle8.)
On the eve of the event, T caught up with Bettany to discuss the film and his advocacy efforts.
How did you decide on this topic for your first film?
I wanted to direct a movie, and I thought I might want to write a movie about judgment. It seems to me, as I’m now in my 40s, that the world is actually more and more full of gray areas, yet we’re becoming more and more entrenched in black-and-white positions. I have been living in New York now for over 13 years, I think, and watching homelessness just spiral uncontrollably around us. It’s not about homelessness being bad or drug addiction being bad, because every decent human being knows that they are. But nevertheless, I thought this couple outside my building might be a really good subject matter with which to talk about judgment.
It can be hard to remember how easily any of us could end up in the same position.
We’re all so much closer than we think, honestly. I just know it. And so that’s what I wanted to write about.
What kind of research did you do?
Well, I immediately went to see the Coalition for the Homeless, and they were incredibly helpful. I went out with them on their food drive, and spent lots of time having them vet the script as I wrote it. The third act sort of plays out like a sort of “The Bourne Ultimatum” in that it’s Hannah, the protagonist, against bureaucracy. And I just wondered what bureaucracy was in place to keep people from their benefits. Of course, there is always bureaucracy in place to stop people receiving what is due to them.
That might be one of the reasons for some people’s negative reaction to homelessness – if you can blame the individuals, then you don’t have to do the self-reflection to realize what role you might be playing in those social structures.
Yes. And also this assumption that it’s bleeding the economy dry, which is frankly ludicrous. Surely, if we can support Wall Street in their time of need, we can support a family — there’s also sort of a misunderstanding about who is homeless. The figures are actually really revealing, right? I mean, if you just are looking on their website, 56,987 people are seeking shelter every night in New York City, the richest town on earth besides probably Hong Kong, and 24,000 of those people are children. And 21,000 of them are adults in families. It’s the worst it has been since the Great Depression. That’s just shocking.
What else did you and Jennifer learn during the process of making the film?
Jennifer became a card-carrying member of a needle-exchange program, and was at meetings, doing that stuff. She built a very close relationship with a recovered intravenous drug user, who is a success story – she’s in complete recovery from it. And it was a very important relationship, I think, for Jennifer. She’s very glamorous, this woman, and had been living rough on the streets, and I think that was very important for somebody like Jennifer to see that how you look, whether you’re pretty or whatever, is absolutely no arbiter of whether you’re going to fall by the wayside. … Everybody has a story, and they’re awful and frankly terrifyingly normal.
What steps can be taken to alleviate the problem?
We need more low-cost housing in this town. That’s what we need. … I think there’s a huge amount to be optimistic about; the new administration is doing more, and can be asked to do even more. I think that we are moving in the right direction.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
