Jamie Bell has been busy since he first won our hearts playing an 11-year-old aspiring dancer in 2000’s Billy Elliot. He’s appeared in several films, including King Kong, Flags of Our Fathers, and The Adventures of Tintin, and last summer, he welcomed a baby boy with his wife, actress Evan Rachel Wood.
Now, the 27-year-old actor stars in the new AMC drama Turn (April 6), a Revolutionary War thriller about America’s first spy ring. Bell plays Abraham Woodhull, a farmer in British-occupied Long Island, who forms a team of secret agents who help George Washington turn the tide of the war.
Bell spoke with Parade about fatherhood, the surprising hardest thing about period acting, and why he wouldn’t want to play Billy Elliot again.
Had you been actively looking for a TV role?
“There had always been opportunities in television; for a number of reasons, it just never happened. I didn’t get it or I didn’t do it. I think when I first started out, when I was 13, 14, there was such a stigma. I was so aware of it. I came into the business with no stigmas, no preconceptions, but there always seemed to be such a stigma between film acting and TV acting. I was so unaware of the rise of television, because I was just a teenager and not really paying attention to anything other than myself. But it went crazy. It got really good, and they went, ‘Let’s just do movies on television.’ And when I figured that out, I was like, ‘Why would anyone not consider this? The stuff they’re doing on TV, by the way, is a lot better than most films.’ Just because they have the time, and you can get really great actors to do really good character parts. When this one came around, there was never a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, but it’s television.’ I said, ‘Let me have a look at it, and see what it is.’ It was AMC, and I was so aware of their catalogue of shows, so I was very excited.”
What’s the hardest thing about period acting?
“It’s the lack of insulation on set! The feet especially. Anyone will tell you from this show, you just lose your feet—they’re just freezing. Those costume shoes and costume socks, there’s just no insulation to them so you’re just freezing all the time. Our costume designer is amazing. She won an Emmy for John Adams. This is her territory and this is what she does better than anyone, so we’re so blessed to have her design the look for the show. What she did for my character is amazing. That leather jacket that I wear in the show was beautiful; it does everything for the character. A lot of time you’re in the middle of nowhere because you have to be to make it believable, and it sucks because it’s freezing. And we’re also shooting it in winter, which doesn’t help either.”
Is your family with you on set?
“Yep, it’s been great. My wife’s an actress as well. I’m so lucky that she isn’t working at the minute so that we can have this time together. And [it’s] really important time together: the kid’s like five months old and I just feel that it’s so important that both of us are around so that connection is deep and made. So that’s been great. I’m so fortunate for that. But it’s a total relocation of your life. It’s a huge commitment doing a show. I didn’t really realize the kind of undertaking, what it required of you, but it’s a massive undertaking.”
How good are you in real life at keeping secrets?
“If it’s required of me, pretty good. I’m not someone who necessarily keeps secrets, but if someone were to give me something that needed to be held close to the chest, it would be very difficult to get it out of me.”
Does being an actor help in that regard?
“True. It’s difficult with people that you love, like lying to my wife or lying to my manager who I’ve known for a very long time, that’s incredibly difficult. I guess it would be different if my life depending on it, which is a situation that these characters are in a lot of the time. What they know potentially could get them killed. So I think if my life was on the line, I might be a bit better at it.”
How have you avoided child actor syndrome, making it to adulthood without getting arrested or having big problems?
“I can only speak for myself, really. I was fortunate to have a really good manager who kept me very grounded, [as well as] my family, my mom especially. I was just working all the time. I didn’t really have time to go off the rails in that way. I’m sure I did it in my teenager kind of ways, but I wasn’t publicized. I wasn’t a Disney kid, I wasn’t Bieber, I didn’t have the attention of the world on my shoulders. I did for a second and then I just went and did a bunch of work, and started to live an actor’s life. You go from one to the next to the next to the next. In that regard, I was lucky that the focus wasn’t so heavy on me. I don’t really know another way around it. Just having really good, solid people around you that you trust.”
You have “tap dancer” in your Twitter bio. Do you still break out the tap shoes every once in a while?
“I love tap dancing. Tap dancing will always be very close to my heart. I love the expression of tap dancing. It’s great fun. I don’t take classes though…Once every five years, I might go for a time where I’ve maybe cleaned out my storage, find a pair of tap shoes, and try them on and see how they sound. But I’m never rehearsing routines—I’m never doing anything like that. Tap dancing is a difficult thing because it’s so outdated, other than Stomp and trashcans and stuff like that—I mean, seriously? Which I’m sure was great in the ‘90s, but it’s been done. I don’t know how you make tap dancing relevant or make it immediate or make it exciting. It’s difficult.”
Being a dad, how has your life changed in the past five months?
“Less sleep, a lot less sleep! You’re tired a lot of the time, but there’s so much about it that’s amazing. You’re seeing how a human being grows and develops. From motor function in their fingers, to them figuring out how to smile, to them figuring out that if they cry they’ll get your attention, to literally seeing them fall in love with you. Seeing them go, ‘Oh, I see: I’m completely dependent on you! I’ll keep you around. I like you!’ It’s amazing that you’re creating this relationship with this being, because they’re so alien-like at first, when they look at you with those eyes, so untainted by anything that’s corrupt in the world, anything that’s tainted at all, they’re just so pure. It’s an amazing experience. And I see why people have more than one kid. I see why people go, ‘I would love another kid.’ That experience, although it’s tiring, brings you so close to the person you’re with, the partner, whoever it may be. You’re so together in that experience that it’s a union, and it’s a family coming together. It’s amazing.”
How much did you know about this story?
“To be honest, when they sent me the show, whoever the covering agent was at my representation made a really hash job of describing what the show was. It was kind of like, ‘Well, it’s kind of about a farmer in the Revolutionary War and we don’t really know what side he’s on…’ and then I saw what it was based on, the source material and I was like, ‘Guys, why didn’t you say it was Washington’s spies, that would have got me way more interested in it to begin with. That was a terrible pitch that you guys just gave me.’ So I was genuinely, completely unaware that this was even a big deal or that this had any effect on the war effort or changed the war effort. The more I got into it, the more I read Alex’s book [Washington’s Spies, by Alexander Rose, on which Turn is based]…[I saw] just what a vital thing this was to the war effort. And now, how it’s paved the way to winning other wars. Intelligence is crucial in all walks of life. It’s crucial to the media, it’s crucial to politics, it’s crucial to wars on foreign soil. It’s everything. Espionage is everything. Even personally: [with] your data, like Facebook [and] Twitter, we’re able to know what people are doing all the time. It’s such a part of who we are.”
Is it a very physical role?
“Let’s break it down in terms of soccer. If Abraham Woodhull was a soccer player, he would only make the assists. He would never score the goals. Because all I’m doing is I’m giving them information so that they can go and win. So that they can go and get the victory. So I was saying to Craig, there needs to be some sense of physical victory for him. Because otherwise he’s just setting everything up, and you never really see him win. Which is also a great thing for a character, because there’s something stoic about that and something quite noble about it. But I think ultimately as the character progresses, the audience is going to want to see him…if this is what he’s chosen, we want to see him win at it. We want to see him do it really well. The promise of the premise. So hopefully we’ll get into that as the season progresses.
You have a dance background and your wife sings, so will there be a musical element to whatever you’re planning?
“No. But that would be amazing. She’s an amazing singer. She’s also kind of an amazing dancer…Between us, we’re a triple threat, because she’s got the singing, I’ve got the dancing, and we can both act. So we’re pretty covered!”
What are some of your other hobbies?
“Eating badly is a new habit that I’ve picked up. I think you do when you become a father: just give me anything! I’m so tired—please just give me something that’s easy. I used to play the guitar before the baby came, and I rarely do that anymore. And now, I’m living, sleeping and breathing this show, and trying to make it better all the time. It’s a weird thing on a show because when you’re making a film, you always feel like if you’re not getting it, you’ve missed it and it’s too late, and you won’t be able to get it back, and you hope that you’ve done your best. But on a show, it’s almost like you get another chance to go for it every time you go out, because it’s constantly ever-changing and ever-evolving. And the character’s never doing the same thing twice. It’s almost like torture, because you’re always trying to do the best work but then it just presents you with another opportunity to either mess it up or do it great. So it’s kind of a mental torture, but I quite like it because every day you go back, you’re like, ‘I’m going to try and make it better.’”
Has there been talk about revisiting Billy Elliot 10 years later, especially with the success of the musical?
“I don’t even know what that would be. I feel like we said everything that we needed to say in the movie. I think it would really need to be something like a Fred Astaire biography [or] biopic or some of the greats—but I’m so wrong physically for a lot of those characters, it just doesn’t seem right. So it’s really tricky, unless you create something original. But tap dancing in a lot of people’s eyes is very difficult to do. Because it’s weird, it’s like it’s not relevant, there’s nothing relevant about it. You can enjoy contemporary dance like my buddy Channing Tatum, who’s an incredible physical dancer. And what he does is so relevant to now because it’s so of the time. It’s very sexy, it’s very physical, it’s masculine. And the tap dancing that I know, isn’t that. It’s quite dainty, actually; it’s light on your feet and it’s all rhythmic. It’s something that I don’t think the mass populous can really appreciate. Also, it requires something. You have to have tap shoes on and have a hard surface—like, I can’t just do it here. Channing Tatum could just bust something out here and it would be amazing. And I’d be like, “I kind of need a studio and a top hat and a cane!’”