Jamie Bell was just 14 when he made his film debut as a would-be ballet dancer in 2000’s Billy Elliot, so by the time he visited the Berlinale in 2007, he’d already begun to develop an impressive resume — having worked on Peter Jackson’s King Kong and Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers — and begun to transition into young adult roles.
In director David Mackenzie’s Scottish-set drama Hallam Foe — which had echoes of both Rear Window and Vertigo — Bell starred as a young man who’s been obsessively spying on his father and stepmother when he discovers a look-alike for his dead mother, a woman working in an Edinburgh hotel played by Sophia Myles. Calling the role “a showy part,” THR critic Kirk Honeycutt added, “it’s a juicy character for the talented and increasingly ubiquitous Jamie Bell to run with.” A competition entry, the film ultimately won a Silver Bear for best music.
Speaking with the entertainment site Outnow, Bell described the film’s title character as “an eccentric … standing on the threshold of adulthood and facing a dilemma. … I have already transformed from a boy to a man on screen multiple times, but this film tackles a range of sensitive topics: a death in the family and the personal reaction to it. It also involves sex, and I had never shot a bed scene before.”
He added of the film’s physical challenges, “The climbing on rooftops and breaking locks were key to the character, so I did all that myself. Actually, I’m not keen on heights at all, but I kept that to myself and pushed through, even though I dreaded it.”
This year, Bell, now a seasoned 39, will be back in Berlin with director Karim Aïnouz’s competition film Rosebush Pruning as part of an impressive ensemble that includes Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Elle Fanning and Pamela Anderson, though, for Bell, once again the drama revolves around a mother’s death.
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