Jamie Bell is still dancing.
Twenty-five years ago, an 11-year-old boy in northeast England made a small film about a coal miner’s son who wanted to dance ballet. Three years later, that boy, 14-year-old Jamie Bell, was on stage at the BAFTAs, becoming the youngest person ever to win Best Actor in this category. Stephen Daldry’s “Billy Elliot” remains the debut film that most actors spend their careers recovering from. Bell, now 40, has worked steadily ever since to make sure this is the only thing anyone remembers.
“Nothing is taken for granted,” Bell told Variety as he sat in a Los Angeles airport terminal, preparing to board a flight back to London. “When you walk out of the gate with something that’s so well-loved like that, it’s a great gift, but it can also be a bit of a curse, because you’ve got to carry that with you and live up to it. It’s a responsibility to have a great career, but it’s easier said than done.”
His subsequent career was one of those rare ones where he made his debut as a child actor and didn’t solidify into an obvious next career. These include the action film “Jumper”, the period drama “Movie Stars Never Die in Liverpool”, the fantasy musical biopic “Rocketman”, and the moving ghost drama “All of Us Strangers”. and most recently, the HBO limited series “Half Man,” in which Bell plays a man who moves on with his life. It’s a towering performance that resets the conversation about his abilities as a dramatic actor this Emmy cycle.
Written and directed by Richard Gadd, the film sees the same distinctive voice that defined the Emmy Award-winning “Baby Reindeer” break loose and arrive in Bell’s orbit. He says he first read episode 6 before he had any idea what the show was going to be about. When he read that the character Nile was doing something he called “risking his life,” that was enough to get him hooked.
“He’s making the wrong decisions at every turn,” Bell says of the character. “It’s a dark downward spiral of self-loathing, self-loathing, self-destruction. And clearly this is a guy who’s been given every opportunity to succeed. He’s experiencing success for almost the first time in his life, but he doesn’t know how to deal with it and doesn’t acknowledge it.”
Provided by Cannes Series
This is the type of role that doesn’t exist for under-the-radar actors. By his own account, Bell has been extremely meticulous. He credits the managers he worked with for 20 years for teaching him to remain aware, curious, and honest about his craft. It has become something of a mantra in life for him.
“In order to live life, you have to love it,” says Bell. “There’s going to be a lot of rejection and hardship, and you have to learn more about yourself as you go. You can only grow as an actor by growing as a person. If you’re not growing as a person, you can’t really grow as an actor.”
The list of filmmakers Bell has spent his life studying is like an aspiring actor’s wish list, but he’s lived it nonetheless. Steven Spielberg (The Adventures of Tintin), Clint Eastwood (Flags of Our Fathers), Peter Jackson (King Kong), Edward Zwick (Defiance), and Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer). “I just watch them and learn from them,” he recalls. “A lot of it is risky. I think you have to be fearless because you have to jump in and be brave and make choices.”
The movie he’s most excited for people to see is Paul Greengrass’ The Uprising, in which he plays radical preacher John Ball opposite Andrew Garfield in Focus Features. The film dramatizes the English peasant revolt of 1381, which Bell called “England’s first revolution,” organized by ordinary people in opposition to punitive poll taxes imposed to finance what they perceived as endless wars.
“The British monarchy tried to impose a poll tax on its people, which they thought was unjust,” Bell explains. “They thought the people were going to be exploited, used and abused to finance endless wars. And the people organized themselves and came together and descended on London, saying, ‘Enough is enough.’
Working with Greengrass has been a long-standing ambition. Bell saw the 2002 docu-drama “Bloody Sunday” when he was 14 years old and has pursued the experience ever since. The reality of being on the set of Greengrass was as expected, he says.
“The way he shoots is incredible. There’s no real coverage, the camera is just floating somewhere and it’s always on. Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Yeah, do the script, don’t do the script, but this is a scenario I want you to interact with. I’ll give you some advice, but if you feel like adding something here and there, do that.'”
Outside of the Greengrass movies, Bell is currently filming the sequel series Peaky Blinders, which takes over the universe. The schedule is demanding in a way that conflicts with his stated priorities: his family.
“You only get to raise a child once, so being away from home for long periods of time to film an entire show is a huge strain on me as well. It’s a strain on my family, just like it is on everyone else. The immediate thing is finishing the show and coming home and being a father.”
The same work-life calculus also stands in the way of the role he’s wanted longer than anyone else. Bell, who distinguished himself as a dancer even before he stepped in front of the camera, was on the verge of playing Fred Astaire in a long-conceived feature project that ultimately never materialized. The disappointment hasn’t gone away.
“It’s definitely a dream role; it’s one of those,” he says. “It’s very difficult to decipher. What is the angle of this? What is the story we really want to tell? That’s obviously still being worked out. I know there are some Fred Astaire projects as well.”
He stopped treating the Astaire project as his only ambition. What he really wants to make is a dance film that he himself designed in the absence of such a thing.
“More than anything, I want to do something with dance again. I want to do something that will help me get fit and use my dance experience. Tap for sure. Tap is my favorite thing to do.”
What he personally sketches is quieter and more concrete.
“I’d love to make a contemporary tap dance film that focuses primarily on the process. I think films about rehearsal spaces are fascinating: how things come together, what it takes to get it done, and the thinking behind it. I’m really fascinated by the care that goes into crafting something like that.”
But for now, the focus is on Greengrass’ film Peaky, which will be released in 2026, and his family. As he points out, he’s no longer the kid on the BAFTA stage.
“Turning 40 is a big deal for me,” Bell recalls. “I tell people I’m 40 years old and a father of three. I think they’re more surprised than I am.”
he laughed.
“I remind everyone of my age.”
