Jamie Bell: interview

Time Out speaks to Teeside star Jamie Bell ahead of the premiere of Scottish writer-director David Mackenzie's 'Hallam Foe' in which he plays the trouble young teenager Hallam

Plucked from Teesside to star in Stephen Daldry’s ‘Billy Elliot’ seven years ago, Jamie Bell, who’s now 21 and free of ballet shoes, has since worked with Thomas Vinterberg (‘Dear Wendy’), Peter Jackson (‘King Kong’) and Clint Eastwood (‘Flags of our Fathers’). This week, Bell will be at the Edinburgh Film Festival for the British premiere of ‘Hallam Foe’, the film which Scottish writer-director David Mackenzie (‘Young Adam’, ‘Asylum’) has adapted from the novel by Peter Jinks. Bell plays Hallam, a disturbed teenager from a strange, wealthy family who is mourning his mother’s death by retreating to his treehouse in the Scottish countryside. He flees to Edinburgh, flirts with stalking, love and scaling rooftops and finally encounters an attractive young hotel manager played by Sophia Myles when he lands a job washing dishes in the hotel kitchen.

It’s seven years since ‘Billy Elliot’. Do you feel like a seasoned film actor now?
I think so, yeah. You get a sense of how it all works and what you’re supposed to do on a film set. Also, you get into the swing of the lifestyle. You come to realise that you spend a few months working and then you have a few months off and then you do the same all over again. I still enjoy doing it.

And you’ve worked with Clint Eastwood. How was that?
Quite bizarre. There’s no going out and writing in a diary for a couple of months and then coming up with some interesting character points, like we did on ‘Hallam Foe’! Clint’s attitude is very much: ‘You’re hired because I like what you do you as an actor – so, act!’ You say your lines, they check it’s in focus and you go home. It’s no-nonsense, which is good in a way as his films have a honest approach to them.
Clint isn’t a huge collaborator. He’s not like David Mackenzie, who’s animated and all that. I must say I prefer it when directors know the character very well and are passionate and energetic. On ‘Flags of our Fathers’, there were so many young guys – puppy dogs in comparison to Clint Eastwood – all begging for something.

How did you get to know David Mackenzie?
I met him in Berlin when I was at the festival for ‘Dear Wendy’, doing some interviews. He wanted to talk about the movie, so we went to this Japanese place in which they had all these screens playing pornographic anime. He’s trying to pitch this story to me about this sweetly old-fashioned teenager and there are literally huge close-ups everywhere of orgasmic vaginas and penises ejaculating. He’s quite a nervous person anyway – he has this frantic, nervous energy to him – and the whole time he was talking to me he was distracted. That’s when I first met him. Then I met him again in New York and signed on to the film.

How did David present the character of Hallam to you?
I hadn’t read the book by then. David was vague on all the eccentricities that Hallam has. He presented him as a character who is very stubborn and has difficulty letting go of something: he’s at a point of his life where moving on isn’t possible. David pointed out that after Hallam’s mother passed away he entirely retreated and lived by himself and rebelled against his family at all costs. For any actor, it’s attractive to play a character who spends a lot of time by himself because it allows a lot of character moments to come out.

You’re present in most scenes in the film and often alone in front of the camera. That must make for an unusual relationship with a director?
I was worried that it could become too self-indulgent and too focused on how fucked-up this kid is. But David would shout stuff out and was very animated with his direction: you can see it bursting out of him. But it did get pretty dark at times.

It lightens up as it goes along though.
Definitely, it becomes a lot more romantic. When Ewen Bremner comes into the story, he lightens it up, and Maurice Reeves is there and all the other crazy kitchen workers in the Edinburgh hotel where Hallam works.

It’s pleasing how much of Edinburgh is in the film, from the alleys to the rooftops.
And it’s not like: 'Look, it’s Edinburgh as a tourist destination.' It just happens. It’s a perfect backdrop as Edinburgh is bizarrely gothic in a way, especially at night time.

It’s got to be the perfect film to open the Edinburgh Film Festival?
Absolutely. I would assume that would be a good marketing ploy!

‘Hallam Foe’ opens the Edinburgh Film Festival this week and is released on August 31.

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