PAUL BETTANY was delighted to team up with wife JENNIFER CONNELLY for the forthcoming CHARLES DARWIN biopic - because the pair has always wanted to test its chemistry on the big screen.

Creation sees Bettany playing Darwin, while Connelly takes on the role of the English naturalist’s wife Emma, in the movie chronicling the scholar’s early years as he struggles to cope with the loss of a child.

The pair was quick to sign up for the project - in a bid to see if their relationship could be conveyed onscreen.

But Bettany admits the couple, who wed in 2003, experienced some last-minute nerves just a day before they had to start shooting their scenes.

He tells Filmstar magazine, “The offer came very quickly, and it appealed straight away to the pair of us to do it together. In this day and age, and in this culture, it’s quite difficult working with your wife because people seem to frown on it.

“(It’s been) fantastic for a number of reasons. One is that you get a lot for free. When working with someone who isn’t your wife, one maybe tends to look at them too much while trying to present the idea of a relationship onscreen. Sort of ignoring each other is much more telling in a genuine long relationship; there’s a much more natural physicality.

“On the night before out first day of shooting, we were thinking, ‘What if we just sit there and giggle at each other and can’t do it?’ But right from the get-go, it’s been fantastic.”