Jamie Bell



Andrew James Matfin Bell (born 14 March 1986) is an English actor and dancer who rose to prominence for his debut role in Billy Elliot (2000) for which he won the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He is also known for his roles in the films King Kong (2005), Jumper (2008), The Adventures of Tintin (2011), and Snowpiercer (2013), as well as starring as Abraham Woodhull in the TV series, Turn: Washington's Spies (2014). He portrayed the Thing in the 2015 film Fantastic Four.

Early life
Bell was born in Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees, England, where he grew up with his mother, Eileen (née Matfin), and elder sister, Kathryn. His father, John Bell, a toolmaker, left before Bell was born. Bell began his involvement with dance after he accompanied his sister to her ballet lessons. 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 the National Youth Music Theatre.

Career
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 his working-class widowed father and elder brother by taking up ballet. He also appeared in Close and True, an ITV legal drama shown in 2000, which starred Robson Green, James Bolam, and Susan Jameson.

Bell served as Honorary Jury President of the 2001 Giffoni Film Festival. In 2002, he appeared as the disabled servant Smike in an adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby and a young soldier in Deathwatch. In the following years, he portrayed 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. Also in 2005, he starred opposite Evan Rachel Wood in the Green Day video Wake Me Up When September Ends, directed by Samuel Bayer. 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. He had roles in two 2008 films: the sci-fi film Jumper and the World War II drama Defiance. In the second film he plays Asael Bielski, the third of the Bielski Brothers – leaders of a partisan group that saved some 1,200 lives during the Holocaust.

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 and Nick Frost. The film was released in 2011. He also starred in the 2011 films The Eagle as Esca and Jane Eyre as St. John Rivers. In 2013, he starred alongside James McAvoy in the film Filth and appeared as Edgar in Snowpiercer.

Since 2014, Bell has appeared as Abraham Woodhull in Turn: Washington's Spies; the fourth and final season will begin airing in April 2017. In 2015, he played the Thing in the Fantastic Four reboot.

Personal life
Bell began dating American actress Evan Rachel Wood after they met while co-starring in the music video for Green Day's 2005 song "Wake Me Up When September Ends". After a year together, the couple broke up in 2006. Five years later, in mid-2011, it was reported that Bell and Wood had rekindled their relationship. The couple married in a small ceremony on 30 October 2012. They have one son, born in July 2013. Bell and Wood announced that they had separated on 28 May 2014.

In late 2015, Bell began dating his Fantastic Four co-star Kate Mara and in January 2017, the couple got engaged.