Paul Bettany explores being art star Andy Warhol on Broadway

NEW YORK — Paul Bettany has long been an admirer of art superstar Andy Warhol, from a distance, like an art lover wandering a favorite gallery. “I think there might be a reason that Andy is always a cameo in films.” Persistence on the part of a producer and reading Warhol’s diaries convinced Bettany that he might at least try. Bettany stars in “The Collaboration,” Anthony McCarten’s fictional account about the real period in the mid-1980s when Warhol was compelled to work with new sensation and potential rival of the New York art world, Jean-Michel Basquiat, played by Jeremy Pope. Drama and imagination can get you there.” Critics have had mixed reactions in New York, but Bettany’s performance has been praised, with the Daily News saying he “treads lightly and wisely through a tough assignment given all of the pre-existing Warholian preconceptions.” The play, which crossed the Atlantic after having played London’s Young Vic Theatre this spring, was made into a film before it landed on Broadway, mostly shot in Boston.