Paul Bettany

By popular demand (see Dilf-to-do list) we've opened up the virtual floor (no relationship to pelvic) to one of the Rock's most earnest Dilf supporters the highly affable @peabee72. Apparently she's seen the future, and it looks like Paul Bettany....

Tired of Brad being all uber-male and, frankly, a little, ahem, crusty, (even if he is about to lose the Scary-Mary on his arm)?  Sick of waiting for George Clooney to ordain us with his progeny and claim his DILF colours?  Well call off the search because Paul Bettany reaches the parts that these charlatans can only aspire to.

Let’s be honest here, Bettany’s the kind of guy who just might qualify for ‘sexy dad’ if you saw him in the playground, but there’s an equal chance that you’d overlook him for the gobby alpha male over by the climbing frame. Thing is you’d be missing a serious trick if you did.  You see, PB ‘does’ normal and he makes it look easy, even with a Revlon ambassador on his arm – former child star and all round morsel of gorgeousness: Jennifer Connelly (whom he met on A Beautiful Mind). 

This is one family that doesn’t need a Venture photoshoot to make them look good. He’s properly invested in their sons, Kai (12)- Connelly’s son from her relationship with photographer David Dugan and Stellan (6) and he’s got just enough alpha-maleness to want to protect them in their Vermont home without it overflowing into wanton machismo.

OK, brakes on for a sec.  Let’s dissect and discuss exactly what qualifies Mr B to join the exclusive and disproportionably small section of the Dilf list dedicated to ‘The Blondes’. PB’s the third so far if you include Andrew McCarthy and frankly we’ll elbow you in the ribs if you don’t.  Why is that? Is it the fact that the blondes tend to fall more on the cute as opposed to dilfable side of the fence– and they’re not built for hurdling?  

There’s probably a highly scientific, even Darwinian reason behind all of this and, ironically PB would be well placed to explain, thanks to his role as the man himself in Evolution. Maybe you were unimpressed with his performance as Silas the albino monk in the Da Vinci Code?  Come on… lower the bar – name one sexy albino in a movie and we’ll back down.  Put off by him in his shorts in Wimbledon?  Don’t really blame you; even he spent the entire movie looking faintly embarrassed.  But in his new film, Legion, he’s pumped, tanned and tatted-up to just the right degree and if we were religious types we’d be praising God right now. It’s a pleasant/terrifying diversion depending on how you view monster-spider-grannies, and PB’s performance as the Archangel Michael will hold your attention, even if the rest of the film unravels in typical ‘OMFG we're all gonna die’ style. Plus it's got elder statesman Dilf, Dennis Quaid for added value.

Bettany does English better than just about anyone else out there, unselfconsciously manipulating those cutglass vowels that got him bullied for years at school.  Here’s a man who would have you scampering for your St. Trinian’s outfit in a heartbeat. But if you prefer the transatlantic timbre, give him a try in Lars von Trier’s Dogville– but set your dark-o-meter to max.

PB hasn’t always had the easiest of rides. The death of his younger brother preceded his parent’s divorce and Bettany maintained his day job of piecing together a stellar back-catalogue of eclectic movies, finding himself in a genuinely successful Hollywood marriage and we’d still like to bet that he wouldn’t look out of place in the frozen foods aisle in Sainsbury.

Piece together all of these nuggets of didactic code and you won’t find the Holy Grail, but you’ll definitely find enough qualifying evidence for PB’s ballistic trajectory to Dilfdom.  All hail Mr February!

Legion is out on January 22nd. @peabee72 is on twitter. Follow her for more of the same.

See all DILFs