Jamie Bell Quotations

I think a mantra I always told myself is, "No matter how many times somebody pitches the ball at you, if you swing every time, eventually one of them is going to connect." Being yourself and persistence are two things that became my daily mantras, I suppose.

Saying "muff" to someone and trying to be romantic is incredibly difficult.

The reason I do small, independent movies is because I want to keep my soul intact and maintain some kind of integrity within this industry.

Any time you can completely immerse yourself in something it's fun.

I love anything that kind of removes me from myself and employs something else. So, I love accents and I love pretending.

It must be hard to be a female in a David Mackenzie movie. I feel like women in his films are portrayed a certain way - like broken people.

New York is great for people watching and there's a bunch of amazing rooftops.

As a kid I never had the impulse to climb anything. I think that most kids who live in small towns or rural areas outside of the city, that's what they do - climb walls, or trees, or whatever. To me, it was more dance classes and not being very boyish.

I have a problem with heights in general - and climbing!

It's weird how an actor can read a script and think 'it's really good, it's really funny, that's going to be really dramatic...' and then you get there and say: "Oh, I have to get in it? I have to get in the water?! Are you kidding?"

I never realised that the Edinburgh skyline was so interesting - it's gothic and very urban and there's a lot of church spires and old brownstone buildings.

That's just a much more enjoyable and motivating experience for me, when I can see people who are just as obsessed with the idea as I am.

Wherever the good work is I'll go.

I'm proud of my works. But there's not one thing that I can put my finger on and say, "That is my greatest achievement. That's my proudest moment." That's so tricky to me.

It's hard to define somebody by one movie. I mean, unfortunately, my entire life was basically made by Billy Elliot. It was kind of created by that one catalytic moment.

I think I have much more appreciation for directing and movies overall versus a performance or an actor. Their body of work is more interesting.

Sometimes great things come from doing things quickly and not over-thinking stuff.

Let's say that you commit a crime, you get caught, you might get sent to prison. It's going to be bad. But if you get caught spying, you're literally hanged the next morning.

Your credit card, your inbox, your Hotmail.com are not particularly secure. We are being watched; it's just a part of life.

I'm just a small guy so if I'd dropped any more weight it would have been a bit ridiculous.

If the right thing came along at the right time, it would be an enormous kind of challenge.

I think movie making can sometimes make you lazy in your approach. Occasionally you'll be shooting a scene and it's not even your coverage but you'll catch yourself slipping away and you'll see your mind going somewhere else. But you just can't afford to do that on stage.

When I see people talking about TV, they're way more animated, way more passionate than when they talk about films.

I think as English people, we don't want to be reminded that at one point we ruled three-quarters of the globe, and now we're a very small country that doesn't own three-quarters of the globe.

I think it was the sense that Turn is a spy thriller, and that's a genre that really fascinates me, in general.

AMC is a fantastic network that does diverse programming, and does it at a really good level and of great quality.

I remember when I first came to America and I saw posters for TV shows and I was like, "What?! Why does a television show deserve space on a billboard?"

New York is full of crazy people, and I like that.

TV is a big business. In some ways, it's surpassed films, in terms of the way people invest in these shows and invest in these characters, and give up so much of their time to follow these people's stories.

I don't think there's a lot of actors out there right now who really know what they're doing at all.

I don't think many people can say they've been the lead in a Spielberg film and still been able to live their normal life that they had before.

I don't take any photographs. I travel a lot by myself, and I feel weird taking photos on my own.

Dancing is like riding a bike.

I actually don't mind rats at all. I kind of think they're quite cute, but that's just me.

I had teen angst for a while, but I think every teenager has the angst.

I have, I think, eight mentors. It's crazy, but I need them. They are all really important to me. They keep me grounded and advise me.

I sympathize with every kitchen porter.

The complexity of the situation of having a war going on around you and what that delivers to you is that you have to figure out which side to take.

I'm a hard-mouthed north-eastern lad. That's me - the Eminem of Northeast England.

I never really sympathised with Peter Parker.

I excelled in English while I was at school.

If you're living two lives and you're lying to everyone, you're bound to slip up, in some way, you're bound to get something wrong, and you're bound to get found out.

I look at my contemporaries, and we're all at different stages and levels, and all choosing different routes, different ways to do things.

If you have created an image of yourself at 13 and it is still with you at 17, it needs to be dropped.

I've got lots of weird illustrations of me from Japanese fans.

It's a difficult position. Do you endanger your child to fight for the right thing, or do you keep your mouth shut and let your child grow up in a world where their natural rights are stripped away from them?

I'm very good at meeting people, very outgoing.

I'm no good at the one-liner thing. It's just not me.

I'm awkward around girls.

I'm still pretty terrified of heights.

I'll tell you what I hate - bands like My Chemical Romance.

I wanted to be a journalist for a long time.

I think everyone still thinks I'm 13.

When you have a child, you are just immediately changed forever. You put yourself second. Your child comes first, and everything that you do is with them in mind.

I think documentary filmmaking is a braver way to make films because it's real, and you're really there.

I never had a father figure so I never missed it.

I love documentaries. It's actually my favorite medium of film.

My favourite superhero is obviously Batman because he's the sexiest. But I can't imagine myself as Batman.

but it's nice when big stars come over and say, 'Great job.'

I'm a hard-mouthed northeastern lad. That's me - the Eminem of Northeast England.

I lost my mind at 15. I'd been shown a world where there were no boundaries, where everyone gave me all the power. And I was like, 'This is great!' Then that was gone. But I was like, 'Yeah, but I still want that.' I'd lost my humble, very quiet, introverted sensibilities which I think I definitely had as a kid.

I hate the stereotype of the pitfalls of the child actor. There are so many amazing examples - Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore - of people who have made it through.

I go into meetings with some film-makers and they literally have nothing to say, they're almost bored by their own material. I'd rather work with people who are very passionate and very animated about what they want to do. People who just want to tell stories.

He got bullied a lot afterwards. He's really nice and he's been telling me what to do.

I think what's important is that you keep on changing, ... You show people your range and show them what you can do. You keep people guessing.

Surfing isn't really in my blood. It's hard to catch a big wave in Billingham.

My characters are often without a significant parental figure.

You just have to surround yourself with people who are going to support and love you before trying to sell you as a product, or push you into something you don't want to do.

We're kind of in a voyeuristic world. We have TV shows that are all about watching people do weird things in houses. People are obsessed with that. There's live coverage of it.

Well, I am obsessive about my work. I throw myself in all the way.

What's weird is that I work with these directors and then I start channeling them. I kind of turn into them a bit - which is cool when you're working with Clint Eastwood.

Every interview I do, it's basically 'how did he do it,' and I owe it all to my representation, and my manager is basically like my mother, she's so picky.

It's hard to incorporate dance into movies I think.

Everyone is slowly catching on to this one - and I know everyone says this - but we need to make a little more effort with the environment. Everyone says they turn off their lights, but do they really?

Tap dancing is all about the feet; you put your head down and don't really engage with anything but the rhythm in your head.

It's bizarre, because you'd kind of expect it to happen at the end but it happens right at the beginning, ... And throughout the film you kind of see my character constantly trying to get something off his chest, only his family and all the adults around him are oblivious to their kids and what their kids need. So there's this yearning for someone to listen to what his problem is.

It was mostly the kids that I didn't really know that said 'girlie-boy'

I've just been blessed to work with these really great people.

It's very much an ensemble film I can't stress that enough because all the actors I worked with are all tremendous, ... Many different things happen within the film, the characters kind of intertwine and by the end, they come to the same level and connect. So it's hard to explain, but basically it's about dysfunctional youth and families in suburban America.

It's very much an ensemble film ù I can't stress that enough because all the actors I worked with are all tremendous, ... Many different things happen within the film, the characters kind of intertwine and by the end, they come to the same level and connect. So it's hard to explain, but basically it's about dysfunctional youth and families in suburban America.

Indiana Jones is very much an old-world kind of hero. He doesn't really have any kind of superpower or rely on any kind of technology to help him out of things.

I love the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies; they're so beautiful to look at. It's such a shame we don't make them anymore. Although, I don't know how you could make tap dancing current and topical.

I often find the smaller, independent films are much more rewarding than the bigger stuff, but you do the bigger stuff because it's a business, and you've got to show your face a bit, get yourself around.

The idea of it is that these kids are all pacifists but have this obsession with guns, so it's a bit contradictory in the subject matter,