"I went home to this house and spent two days trying to ring this woman in New York City that I sort of really barely knew. "Like so many people in that moment, my life changed," he said. There was a "moment," but neither acted on it, until September 11, 2001, when Bettany was in Italy and saw that New York City - Connelly's city - was under attack. Smith asked Bettany about the guitar: "Oh, I'm here to tell you, if you're gonna marry up, guitars work, okay? That's for all the boys out there if you're intending on marrying up. And my director's eye was telling me there's a little electricity there!" And I felt like she was not just listening to the song. Paul Bettany was also in the movie, and though they never shared a scene, they caught each other's eye.ĭirector Ron Howard knew something was up: "On the very last day of shooting 'Beautiful Mind,' Paul was kinda playing his guitar, and he's a pretty good musician. The whole thing was larger than life, and magical, really magical." And it's the most chaste thing you've ever seen, but I was just mortified that it was in a movie. And it was my first time out of America - we filmed in Italy. "Not that I do now, but I really had no clue what I was doing! "I had no clue what I was doing," Connelly said. Smith asked, "Did you have any idea how incredible that was at the time?" Connelly started modeling in grade school, and that led to her being cast - at age 11 - in Sergio Leone's 1984 epic, "Once Upon a Time in America." Tomboy or not, she did clean up pretty well. Jennifer Connelly with correspondent Tracy Smith in Woodstock, N.Y. Jennifer Connelly was born in upstate New York, and spent part of her childhood climbing trees in the little town of Woodstock. If I'm not feeling cross, I look a little bit cross.