BETWEEN TAKES

JAMIE BELL ON SEX SCENES, PRANKS AND BILLY ELLIOT’S WRAP PARTY…

What’s the first thing you do when you get to set?

Music is important for me, with characters. I always have music on in the trailer. Sometimes I’ll make these slides of inspiration – art or photography or pictures of people, and references, and things like that. So I’ll have that on a loop, on the iPad, playing music and stuff.

Are you a hot-lunch or a cold-lunch person?

I hate eating on set. To eat food is the enemy of, I think, acting. It wants to fuck you up. That’s why I like French hours, where it’s running lunches. I just don’t want people to eat [laughs].

Do you ever sleep on set?

Absolutely not. No way. Here’s the thing – especially on [All of Us Strangers], and obviously lots of other films I’ve done with real actors – I look at what they’re doing, and they have control over what they’re doing. I can’t relax. I can’t do that thing, because, for me, it has to be torture. I don’t know how to do it any other way.

Best and worst on-set experience?

I’d say [All of Us Strangers] was very close to a perfect experience. The actors are phenomenal, the crew were fantastic, and everyone had so much of themselves to give to this. I think that always elevates the material, but also the experience.

And anything that just takes too long, I’m completely disinterested in. I was on a movie that just took about a year to make, and we were flying all over the fucking place. We were getting new actors in, and getting rid of other ones. It was just hell. It was just out of control.

Have you ever taken anything from set as a memento?

I have a couple of things from the set of King Kong that I did with Peter Jackson. Do you know what my thing is? You know when you go to ceremonies or events or press conferences, and they have little name tags for people? I always nick those off people. I took Andrew’s [Scott] and Claire’s [Foy] the other day. I have Elton John’s and Peter Jackson’s and Spielberg’s. They just sit on top of my shelf like little trophies [laughs].

‘I CAN’T RELAX. FOR ME, IT HAS TO BE TORTURE. IDON’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT ANY OTHER WAY’

How did All of Us Strangers compare to the average set?

Well, we were shooting on film for a start. So already there’s this kind of preciousness, because when you can hear [makes whirring sound] it changes the energy. There’s something precious about ‘don’t waste the film’.

But then, of course, we’re shooting in the director’s childhood home. That changes everything about the way you’re approaching the work. There’s just this massive sense of importance to what you’re doing. Those two things made it really elevated from most things that I’ve ever done before.

Do you ever pull pranks on set? Have you ever been pranked?

I’ve been pranked before… Channing Tatum. That’s all you need to know. I don’t need to go any further than that. But Channing Tatum is the king of it.

Most embarrassing moment on set?

Many. Mostly my acting [laughs]. But [sex scenes] are excruciatingly embarrassing. Any time anything like that is going on, it’s like, ‘What are we doing?’

What’s the best wrap party you’ve been to?

This is going to sound so weird, but the Billy Elliot wrap party was amazing [laughs]. All the people that are usually in these massive coats and they’re busy running around – they’re all now really dressed up. I was like, ‘This is so weird, to see people as themselves all of a sudden.’ But it was so strange, all these adults being drunk and silly. It was such a great way to finish that job, because it was like, ‘Oh, you get to have a big celebration at the end of doing all this shit.’ I didn’t know what a wrap party was. Nothing’s going to be as good as it.