European Films

 

British actor Jamie Bell came to the world’s attention as the exuberantly dancing title character in Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot, for which he won a Best Actor BAFTA at age 14. He has since gone on to star in films that have challenged him as an actor (Undertow, Dear Wendy) and in Hollywood productions such as Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake and Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers. His latest role in the former category is Hallam Foe, a disturbed Scottish teenager with some serious personality and sexual issues in David McKenzie’s film of the same name. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Peter Jinks and is the now 21-year-old actor’s most mature effort yet. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, where Boyd van Hoeij listened in on what the actor had to say. The film is released in Germany today (Thursday) and in the UK tomorrow.

 

Hallam Foe is an adolescent from a privileged Scottish family who spins out of control when his father (Ciarán Hinds) remarries a younger woman (Claire Forlani). Hallam starts to spy on the couple and he has increasing difficulties in properly understanding his feelings for the stunning woman who has started to replace his dead mother. Troubled by the idea of what this might all mean, Hallam hides in the city of Edinburgh, where he continues his spying activities on innocent passers-by and finally falls into a strange relationship with the personnel manager of a hotel (Sophia Myles) who looks strikingly like his dead mother. 

 

Hallam is one of the biggest outsiders Bell has played so far, though he can hardly relate to being an outsider. "Even though I was into dancing when I was younger," Bell explains, "I never really was an outsider in the way Hallam is. I had the full support from my family. Hallam is much more of an outsider and has all these issues of anger, guilt and sadness inside". On the question of whether the actor thinks he could have been friends with someone like Hallam, Bell answers after some hesitation: "Be friends? Yes, I guess so. He has as good heart, a good soul".

 

Shot in the director’s native Scotland, the film is certainly far removed from the huge Hollywood productions in which the actor recently starred. "We called it ‘the beautiful nightmare’ while making it," Bell says with a laugh. "We worked 6-day weeks on a tight budget and a tight schedule. But I think David was more passionate about the character than I was and I love these passions projects a lot more than the studio movies -- with all due respect to Clint Eastwood."

 

Young Foe has a lot of unresolved issues and not all are related to his father’s new wife. He sometimes likes to walk around in his mother’s clothes, paints his face as if he were a warrior and starts a relationship with a girl who looks exactly like his mother. The film also has the actor’s first sex scenes. On these, the actor explains with a smirky smile: "I knew these would come up sooner or later. I mean, a kid my age who doesn’t get his kit off is not normal, is he? But really, it was fine, even though it was weird to go from something intense to the director saying cut". Bell continues: "For me this was the first time," before falling silent and then adding, hastily: "on film anyway!"