Paul Bettany tapped into own insecurities to play Salieri in new ‘Amadeus’ series

20 December 2025, 19:00 | Updated: 29 December 2025, 12:17

Amadeus cast: "I'm going to become a famous conductor"

Actor says he used his “feelings of inadequacy” to play Mozart’s rival.

Paul Bettany has revealed how his own insecurities helped him unlock a raw, anguished portrayal of Antonio Salieri in Sky’s forthcoming Amadeus miniseries.

The series, created and written by Black Doves writer Joe Barton and directed by Julian Farino and Alice Seabright, is a reimagining of Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus. Over five hours, viewers get to delve a little closer into the domestic lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his rival Salieri.

The BAFTA-nominated star of WandaVision and Master and Commander Bettany has said he approached Salieri as a man who feels abandoned by a shared father figure – God – after recognising Mozart as a true genius.

Unable to connect directly with the script’s conception of God, Bettany said he reimagined it as “a sort of prodigal son story”, channelling his own “feelings of inadequacy” into Salieri’s fury at a deity who appears to have chosen Mozart and overlooked him.

Read more: Amadeus TV series – cast, official trailer and release date revealed

“I found it very hard to grasp the idea of God,” Bettany said. “And because I think that he feels very much that God has overlooked him and chosen Mozart, in my head I made it a sort of a shared father figure. It’s a sort of prodigal son story and I am filled with the injustice of ‘why has he been given this gift?’”

Bettany has also described the shock of conducting Mozart’s ‘Lacrimosa’ for real, after playback was cut during a take and the orchestra simply followed his beat.

“I realised that I was now conducting ‘Lacrimosa’,” he says. “And when I stopped, they all stopped and I was like, ‘Oh this is too much power for someone like me’,” he said, later joking that he loved it so much he might now become a really famous conductor.

Musical director Benjamin Holder worked with Bettany on developing his own distinct musical presence. “Paul’s approach was fascinating,’” Holder says, “he’s a brilliant musician but newer to the piano and the way he connected with Salieri’s more structured, measured music really informed his performance.

“The contrast between Will’s freer, wilder Mozart and Paul’s precise Salieri mirrors the difference in their music. It was incredible to watch that come to life.”

New 'Amadeus' series - behind the scenes

Will Sharpe, who plays the wunderkind Amadeus, has talked about drawing on the “meditative” power of Mozart’s music – and the inspiration of Mozartian pianist Mitsuko Uchida – to find a more instinctive, emotionally led Mozart.

Sharpe, who won a Primetime Emmy Award for his appearance in White Lotus, described pianist Uchida as “so infectious to watch”.

“She speaks so beautifully about Mozart as well,” he said, “I was saying to Ben [Holder, music director] I really want to do some conducting takes in her style because it looks so fun. But obviously it wouldn’t, it wouldn't have made sense. It would have been like he's completely lost the plot.”

Read more: Did you know Mozart’s middle name isn’t really Amadeus?

Sharpe said: “We tried to find a language that was a mixture of the very metronomic, formal styles of the day but massaging in more modern-leaning expressiveness, just because so much story and feeling and emotion plays out in those set pieces.”