Paul Bettany recalls struggle with guilt over brother's death

Paul Bettany has revealed he struggled with guilt for years after his brother's death.

The Marvel actor was just 16 when his younger brother Matthew died after falling from the roof of a building at the UK school where their father worked.

During an appearance on Tuesday's episode of the Sibling Revelry podcast, Bettany recalled how the devastating loss greatly impacted his life.

"My brother died when he was eight," he shared.

"It was really incredibly hard. He fell off, I guess he was playing hide and seek and he fell off a building that I had taught him how to climb. So there was an enormous amount of guilt to work through on that," Bettany added.

The family had been living on the grounds of Queenswood School, in Hertfordshire, where their father Thane Bettany was employed as a drama teacher.

After Matthew's death, Paul decided to leave school and moved to London to play guitar.

"And that was bad," he explained as he discussed the loss of Matthew.

"I guess that's part of the reason I ended up on the streets busking."

Bettany, who is married to actress Jennifer Connelly, continued to discuss the loss as he revealed therapy finally allowed him to find peace.

"I think that everybody is dropped into a maze by their childhood. And the job of growing up is trying to find your way out of that maze. And I did," the 55-year-old actor reflected.

"But it took some doing and a lot of time, you know, a lot of therapy."

Elsewhere in the appearance, Bettany recalled how his brother's death had "exploded" his family and his life seemed to spiral afterwards.

"When you have a big moment of trauma, it's very easy to hang every issue or every problem that you perceive that you have on this one moment where you feel like it was life before Matthew died and life after Matthew died," the star shared.

"And it's only moments of calm when you're really able to sort of unpick it and kind of go, huh, that wasn't about that at all. That was about this other thing."