Jamie Bell

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Jamie Bell
Born 14 March 1986 (1986-03-14) (age 22)
Billingham, Stockton on Tees, England

Jamie Bell (born 14 March 1986) is a BAFTA-winning English actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the title character in the film Billy Elliot, for which he won the 2000 BAFTA Award for Best Actor.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Bell was born in Stockton on Tees, England, where he grew up with his mother and older sister. His father left after his birth. Bell was a pupil at Northfield School, then the Stagecoach Theatre School. He was a member of the National Youth Music Theatre. In 1999, he was chosen from a field of over 2000 boys for the role of Billy Elliot, an 11-year-old boy who dismays his working-class widowed father and older brother by taking up ballet.[1]

[edit] Career

Bell acted as Honorary Jury President of the 2001 Giffoni Film Festival. Since his film debut in Billy Elliot, he has appeared as the crippled servant Smike in an adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, a young soldier in Deathwatch, a teenager on the run in Undertow, a gun-toting pacifist in Dear Wendy, and a disaffected Southern California teenager in The Chumscrubber. In 2007, he played the title character in Hallam Foe – for which he was nominated for the best actor award at the British Independent Film Awards – and appeared as himself in lonelygirl15 spin-off KateModern.[citation needed]

He has roles in two 2008 films: the sci-fi movie Jumper and the World War II drama Defiance. Despite rumours to the contrary, he will not be appearing in Thea Sharrock's West End production of Equus,[2] having withdrawn from negotiations when he was not offered the contract for the play's Broadway run.[citation needed]

He was the runner up in cycle 19 of America's Next Top Male Model and lost to Darryl Stevens. He doesn't pursue modeling anymore.

[edit] Personal life

In 2005 and 2006, Bell dated actress Evan Rachel Wood, with whom he appeared in the music video for Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends".[3]

He currently resides in New York, and also owns a home in Chelsea, London.

[edit] Filmography

Year Title
2000
  • Billy Elliot as Billy Elliot
  • Close And True as Mark Sheedy
2002
2004
2005

Music Videos

2006
2007
2008

[edit] Awards

[edit] References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  1. ^ Billy Elliot, DVD, production notes
  2. ^ The Stage
  3. ^ Evan Rachel Wood - Wood Confirms Bell Romance

[edit] External links