It took 3-and-a-half hours to transform Paul Bettany every day into the Vision for 'The Avengers' sequel

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Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images

"You had to really get kind of zen about it, and meditate on the line of 1,000 actors behind you that would like to be in your position," Bettany says of getting into the Vision makeup for "Avengers: Age of Ultron."

Hands down the best character in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," the followup to the 2012 hit, was the introduction of a new character, The Vision.

Played by Paul Bettany, who up until this point has solely voiced Tony Stark's A.I. J.A.R.V.I.S., Vision is a human android who fights alongside the Avengers.

During press for the film, Business Insider spoke with Bettany on playing the character.

While Bettany had a great time as the superhero, he says it took three-and-a-half hours each day to do the makeup for the film, and it wasn't always a thrill ride.

"Mainly the pain in the ass was the prosthetics and stuff that you know is as uncomfortable as getting paid a lot of money to be uncomfortable is, which is not really that uncomfortable," Bettany recalled.

"It wasn't even the putting it on - it was the sitting in it, you know," he added. "The putting it on - which took about three-and-a-half hours - with prosthetics, makeup, and all of that, and then the suit ... It was the sitting in it. The first day was okay, and it wasn't even the second day really, but the third day in a row and the fourth and the fifth day was … you had to really get kind of zen about it, and meditate on the line of 1,000 actors behind you that would like to be in your position, you know?"

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Marvel

Paul Bettany's final look as the Vision on screen.

Special effects makeup artist Shaune Harrison, who worked on the character for about five months, tells Business Insider the actual Vision makeup is a combination of prosthetics and digital makeup.

"Most of the lines on the front part of his face are added digitally," Harrison wrote in an email.

the vision

"Avengers: Age of Ultron"

Here you can see a lot of the lines on Paul Bettany's Vision up close.

Bettany described the effort of the makeup team transforming him each day.

"The makeup on my face, which, you know, they're huge prosthetic pieces that go from below my eyebrows all the way down to the mid-shoulder blade. And same thing around my neck. The only part of your skin of your entire body that's open to the air is a sort of … part of your face the size of maybe your hand.

Once he was in the getup, what was the experience like?

"You can't hear very well," Bettany continued. "You can imagine it's quite isolating and you have a cooling mechanism which is a suit beneath it that pumps a sort of ice cold water around you like racing car drivers use, and there's a lot of sitting down, reading, and just trying to focus on how very fortunate you are."

There aren't any images available yet of Bettany making his transformation into the superhero.

We'd be surprised if we don't see some when the film is eventually released on Blu-ray.

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