WATHA, N.C. - He played the ruthless albino monk Silas in "The Da Vinci Code." Now he's Dakota Fanning's abusive father in "The Secret Life of Bees."

But Paul Bettany, who just finished filming the movie version of the Sue Monk Kidd book in North Carolina, has no worries about being typecast as a villain.

"I think I've been very lucky in my career. I've been allowed to do lots of different things which is really nice," said the blond, blue-eyed British actor. "It would be really dull to do the same thing all the time."

Bettany first caught the attention of American audiences in 2001 when he played the comical role of Chaucer opposite Heath Ledger in "A Knight's Tale." He was a surgeon and naturalist in "Master and Commander," a has-been tennis player in "Wimbledon" and a kidnapper in "Firewall." He also appeared in "A Beautiful Mind," where he met his wife, Jennifer Connelly.