Lupin4th Visions: Jamie Bell - Biography At 12-2011

Andrew James Matfin "Jamie" Bell[1] (born 14 March 1986) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Billy Elliot (2000), King Kong(2005), Hallam Foe (2007), Jumper (2008), Defiance (2008), The Eagle (2011) and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (2011).

Bell was born in Billingham, in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, England, where he grew up with his mother, Eileen (née Matfin), and older sister, Kathryn. His father, John Bell, a toolmaker, left before Bell was born.[2][3] Bell began his involvement with dance after he accompanied his sister to her ballet lessons.[4] He was a pupil at Northfield School and took performing arts classes at the local franchise of Stagecoach Theatre Arts. He was a member of theNational Youth Music Theatre. In 1999, he was chosen from a field of over 2,000 boys for the role of Billy Elliot, an 11-year-old boy who dismays hisworking class widowed father and older brother by taking up ballet.[5]

Bell served as Honorary Jury President of the 2001 Giffoni Film Festival. Since his film debut in Billy Elliot, he has appeared as the disabled 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, a disaffected Southern California teenager in The Chumscrubber, and the young Jimmy in the 2005 film version of King Kong. He also appeared in Close and True, an ITV legal drama shown in 2000, which starred Robson Green, James Bolam and Susan Jameson. 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.[6]

In 2005, he starred opposite Evan Rachel Wood in the 2005 Green Day video "Wake Me Up When September Ends," directed by Samuel Bayer.

He had roles in two 2008 films: the sci-fi film Jumper and the World War II drama Defiance. In the latter he plays Asael Bielski, the third of the Bielski Brothers – leaders of a partisan group that saved some 1200 lives during the Holocaust. Despite rumours to the contrary, he did not appear in Thea Sharrock's West End production of Equus.[7]

In 2009, it was announced Bell would play the title role in the motion capture film The Adventures of Tintin alongside British double act Simon Pegg andNick Frost,[8] which is currently pencilled in for US release on 23 December 2011.[9] and had a UK release on 26 October 2011.[10] He also starred in the 2011 moviesThe Eagle and Jane Eyre.