Jamie Bell Thought He Blew A Pivotal Scene In ‘Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool’

What was it like working with Annette? You have to have, sort of portray this intimacy onscreen, and each of them are fond of each other. Did you guys rehearse beforehand? How did you guys sort of handle it?

We didn’t do any rehearsal at all, like, zero. We never rehearsed really anything.

You all just showed up on set?

I mean, we’d do a blocking. Which is kind of tame, so, that’s basically your actors going “Here, you say this,” but we never worked on scenes.  We never worked to get them to a place where we felt comfortable with.  Annette is someone who comes out on take one, just ready to go like fire and I’m really not that way at all.  I take, a good couple takes to get used to the set and get used to everyone looking and to just get behind this girl.  I still have all that anxiety, still. Pretty primitive anxiety, but she’s just there, “Take one, bang, crack!” You’re like, “Shit, I’d better kind of catch up.” But I constantly felt like I was treading water the whole time I was working with her, but she totally treated me like an equal from the very beginning.

Was this her choice, where she just didn’t even want to go over beforehand? Because that’s her, sort of, technique, or method, or was it just …

No, I don’t think so. I think it was Paul, really. I got the blocking, and I went up with the cameras. I’m like, “We may as well just start” and that’s what we did. Maybe some of the kitchen scene stuff.  [The scenes with] multiple characters.

You have this amazing, heartbreaker shot at the end of the movie. And, from my recollection, it’s probably one of the most emotional things you’ve done onscreen in a long, long time.

Right, right, right.

How hard was it for you to get to that moment?

Well, in the script [there was] nothing very specific. The brother [Stephen Graham] coming in was something that I really wanted, because, the thing with your families in Liverpool is that, no matter, they can be at war with each other. But they fucking take care of each other. They love each other. They’re brothers. They love, hate each other. So, I just really wanted to have that moment in there, but we shot it four times, maybe, and we weren’t even supposed to do the cab stuff that day. I think that was actually day two of filming. I think I’m right.

Wait. So, that was at the beginning of the shoot?

Yeah.

You didn’t do that at the end?

No, because that was all exterior. We were on location for that. Our first week of filming was all in Liverpool which means that we did “Romeo and Juliet” [scenes] the first week. We did the taxicab, the second day. It was really mental how off-sync all this was.

So, when you shot that though, did you at least think to yourself, “O.K., listen, I nailed it at the beginning”? Like, “I nailed the key scene at the end of the movie”?

No! That was a horrible way to start because I thought I’d blown it.

Why did you think you’d blown it? Because you could go and watch the footage. I mean …

I hate watching it. That would have put me into a total tailspin.

Paul could have told you, “Hey, dude, you were fantastic.” You just wouldn’t believe it?

No, because, what he did say, and this was always the case, was that we were never to do the inside of the cab that day, because we could put a cab anywhere, and shoot, whenever.  So, that was never his intention. But then he was like, “We’re here, do you mind? We’re just gonna do it now,” knowing that, “Don’t worry, if we don’t have it, we can do it another day.” Which is never, really, a great feeling, because you want that moment to be that moment only, that existed in time, and you’ve fucking crushed it, and you go, “And that’s it.”

You want someone to notice! You don’t want to just …

No, I mean it, because I am like, the worst critic of myself.

 

 

You should ask Paul if he did that on purpose. Maybe he always planned to do it that day, and just wanted to …

Maybe. Maybe. But I always think, because I’ll start complaining in my head, and I’ll say to the director, “Yes, absolutely, no problems.”

Right.

I’m like, “You motherfucker!” (Laughs.)  It’s like, “Why did you fucking do that?” But then, I always think about Tom Hanks [with that unexpected last scene in “Captain Phillips”]  and he was just like, apparently, so fine with doing that scene that day [with little prep time].

Sometimes, it works when there’s no letup. There’s less in your head to do it beforehand.

Right. Sure.

I want to ask what you’re doing next because I think you just shot “Donnybrook” with Frank Grillo?

Yes, yes.  We just finished it. Margaret Qualley‘s in it, as well.  It’s about this poor guy who steals $1,000 to try and enter this bare-knuckle fistfight tournament to try and win the pot and save his family.

So, it’s a fighting movie?

I mean, I am not interested in the fighting parts. I mean, I think that was probably pretty clear to the filmmakers, unfortunately.  Very unfortunate. But it’s kind of a road movie. It’s very, kind of, poetic. It’s very slow-moving, it’s a slow burner.  It’s gritty, across America.

There’s like, one fight scene at the end, or something?

There’s a big fight at the end, yeah, and there’s some other fighting in between, though, yeah.

Did you have to train for it, or no?

A little bit.

I mean, you have a sort of dancing, sort of athletic background. Did you sort of feel like, when they’re like, “Oh, you need to go train,” half the time, you’re still like, “Oh, I don’t need to do this, I’m fine, I’m in good shape, though”?

Yeah, I mean, I do rely on that a little bit, and then, I realized, one, I’m doing the fight. When I’m actually shooting the fight, I’m like, “Fuck, I’m really out of breath I can’t do this anymore. I’m probably gonna die.” (Laughs.)

Do you know what you’re doing next, by any chance?

Yeah, I mean, I’m scheduled to do this movie in February called “Skin” which is about this guy called Bryon Widner who was a part of a skinhead group, changed his ways, reformed himself and got out of it.  He basically gave up a bunch of names and he’s now living in the Witness Protection Program somewhere. It’s been pushed back a few times, so I’m always kind of like, “We were meant to do that, at some point.”

You’re wondering when it’s actually going to happen.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, but there’s a lot of prep that goes into it, too. So it’s like, “Should I start by going down this rabbit hole now or not go down this rabbit hole?”

You certainly don’t want to shave your head, until …

So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, will you have to do that? Or you don’t?

Oh, yeah, and the guy’s covered in facial tattoos, as well. I mean he’s a real departure .

You recently wrapped “Turn” which took up your life and availability for a couple years. Looking back on it are you still glad you did it?

What it did was it gave me a lot of stability, at a time when I really needed it.  I’d just had a son and as an actor who worked for 14 or whatever years up until that point there’s just consistency in going, “I know that, at least for a couple of years, I’m just gonna be going to work, taking care of a kid, and having somewhat of a normal-ish kind of life.” But certainly, it’s very frustrating. It’s very frustrating doing the same thing over and over again. I’d get really tired of it and I was very tired by the end of it. I liked the people that I worked with on it, of course, but it was a hard slog.

“Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool” is now playing in New York and Los Angeles.