Jamie Bell: Talking Sadism and Growing Up 

Long time readers of this blog may remember my previous years of

with the actor Jamie Bell, which begun after I first saw

, in which he plays an emotionally unstable, cross-dressing late-teen who becomes sexually obsessed with a woman who looks like his mother (aka my ideal man). My obsession eventually faded (for the most part), but then peaked again after seeing him with a whip in his hand in 

too excited when I recently got the chance to interview him IRL for the cover of Rollacoaster mag. You now can read the article below:

To say that British actor Jamie Bell has range would be an understatement. Since launching his career in 2000 with his Bafta-winning performance in

, Bell has had an incredibly dynamic career–he’s worked with big gun directors like Steven Spielberg (

), while maintaining his indie cred with films like last year’s

(based on the Irvine Welsh novel), in which he played a cocaine-fuelled rookie cop. Earlier this year, he could be seen giving Charlotte Gainsbourg’s bottom 40 lashes (and then some) as a sadist-for-hire in Lars Von Trier’s sex epic

. More recently, Bell made the jump to TV, playing the lead in

, a new American drama about a farmer leading a team of secret agents during the Revolutionary War. And he’ll soon add “superhero” to his diverse list of characters, with the forthcoming film The

And to top if all off, Bell recently had his first child–a baby boy with his actress wife, Evan Rachel Wood. I recently met up with Bell in his home of Los Angeles to talk about S&M, the internet, and becoming a full-fledged adult. 

A few years ago, would you have imagined yourself staring in a Revolutionary War TV drama?

JB: I probably wouldn’t have doubted it. I always find myself in period pieces, which is weird, because I don’t even particularly like period pieces. But when I look back at the stuff I’ve done, I’m usually in a different century.

KS: “Turn” shoots in Virginia, and you brought your family out to live with you during filming. How was that?

JB: I was very grateful that my family were with me, for sure, but it was also difficult at times–you know, you’re shooting like 17-hour days, almost every day, and then you go home and you’ve got the family to take care of. It’s a magical, incredible juggling act, the three roles: father, husband, actor. It was the first time I did it.

KS: So when you have a kid, do you suddenly start asking yourself questions like: Do I want to be “cool dad,” “strict dad,” or “artistic dad”? Do I give my kid a baseball bat or a guitar?

JB:  It’s strange–my son is only eight months old, but I’m already having thoughts like, ‘I want him to be like

.’ But I think when you become a parent you suddenly realize that every parent did the best they could. You stop judging your own parents so harshly, and you accept that you’re going to make some mistakes–it’s inevitable–and you just hope the mistakes aren’t big ones. And beyond that, love is the most important thing. I would never tell my kid he couldn’t do something, or couldn’t act a certain way.

KS: Right, as a liberal person, it seems obvious that you would be accepting of whatever your child’s chosen lifestyle may be. Like I would never care if my kid was gay, or dressed weird or whatever. But then I’m like… wait, what if my kid is a homophobic jock? I would

JB: Right, but I feel like if your kid is homophobic then there’s clearly something or someone influencing those feelings. Like if my son was homophobic I’d have to step back and evaluate myself, like ‘Fuck, when and where did something go wrong?’ Ya know? If he was a jock I guess that would just be his personality, and I’d accept that. Although I’d admittedly think it was kind of odd, having been raised by my wife and I. But that stuff happens–we rebel. You’re raised a certain way and you want to push back against it–sometimes the rebellion is just to piss your parents off, but sometimes it’s because you’re genuinely interested in something different, or because you see flaws in the values of the people who raised you. I think pushing against authority is a good thing. Although I personally never really had that whole ‘Fuck you, Dad’ mentality.

. You play K, a “Dom” who’s hired by masochistic women looking to be physically abused. There’s no backstory to your character, so part of the intrigue is wondering ‘Who is this person and how did he end up doing these deviant things?’ So in playing that character, did you create those answers in your head?

JB: Not particularly, actually. The idea was for my character to be a bit unexpected: I’m sort of the last person you’d imagine to be doing what K does. The only thing I was really thinking about during those scenes was, ‘What happens if I fell in love with one of these women?’ Like what happens if K starts to feel sympathy? But other than that, the abuse was just something he did–it was his version of playing squash on the weekend. And he was really good at doing it.

KS: But not everyone could do what K does–I think most people would have moral or philosophical issues with physically harming other people, even if they wanted it.

JB: Right, but I think there’s a disconnect. I don’t even think he gets sexual arousal or excitement from it. I think he maybe didn’t understand why these women wanted him to do it but he had the clientele, so he just did it. It’s like a performance almost–you’re being someone else for a while. You’re providing the fantasy.

were you familiar with the S&M world at all, or did you do research?

JB: I did research which included watching a lot of pornography. Also, a friend of mine owns a sex shop and I just spent a lot of time there, but that was about it. I’m not incredibly well-versed in it, but of course I think it’s fascinating–anything to do with sexual expression, or sexual repression, is very fascinating. And I think Lars Von Trier is making a commentary on that.

KS: You explored somewhat similarly “deviant” ground in 2008’s

, about a teenage voyeur whose obsession with his dead mother verges on the sexual.

JB: Yeah, it’s about sex being incredibly ambiguous. Hallam Foe is like, “I don’t get it”–sex is connected to being born, it’s connected to your mum, and that’s not so sexy… but then it also kind of is, weirdly. It’s a Freudian problem. Sex is a very odd thing. It’s intriguing, and it’s something that everybody fucking does, but it also shuts a lot of people down. Sex is a scandal. 

KS: The fact that sex is still so scandalous is so strange. Like the huge media scandal now of the Duke University pornstar–she was outed for acting in porn and now she can’t be on campus, where she was studying law, because she’s getting so many death threats.

porn is a crime worthy of death, or at least public disgrace.

JB: But I wonder if it was a man who was doing porn and wanted to be a lawyer—I wonder if he would be kicked off campus. I feel like a big part of that scandal is the lingering double standard. For women it’s “If you’re a porno actress then you’re a whore, and if you’re a whore then you shouldn’t be a lawyer.” But if it was a guy it would be like, “You shouldn’t be doing that but… secret high five?” For women, sex usually has some moral consequence, but it’s different for men, which is wrong. My wife’s very uppity about it as well. And rightly so.

KS: A couple years ago I was in a serious relationship with a guy who was also a writer, and if felt impossible to avoid a competition between us. Do you and your wife ever feel that competition?

job?” But you’re supportive because of course you want the other person to do well. And I think a healthy measure of competition is a good thing, because it means you’re pushing the other person to achieve and do great work. It’s not so much competing as always  wanting to do better. I was raised with competition from a young age, because I begin dancing competitively when I was six–it was always win, win, win, win.

KS: So I know you’re 28, and so am I. I guess it’s slightly different because I’m not married and don’t have a kid yet, and that sort of fast-tracks you into adulthood, however these past couple years—27, 28— have felt very different for me. You can’t use the crutch of youth as an excuse for stuff anymore.

JB: Oh, so true. And especially when you have a kid you can’t. I used to manage to get away with so much shit, like not responding to emails, misbehaving, or not doing my job properly. And sometimes I still think I can get away with it, but then my manager will be like ‘What the fuck you doing? You’re not like 13 anymore.’ That behavior no longer seems “cute”–now it just looks bad. 

KS: Yeah. And also, when you accomplish something big at the age of 25–like writing a book or making a movie or whatever–it seems really impressive, like you’re special. But when you’re 28 it’s expected that you should be doing great things.

JB: Right, and then there’s people like Tavi Gevinson… fucking hell, what’s going on there? The younger generation is so much more entrepreneurial than we were. Like ‘I recorded an album; I have my own magazine.’ It’s like, you’re fucking 12! Whereas our generation—well, I can only really speak for myself, but I wasn’t like that. When I hear about these kids who achieve so much so quickly, it kind of blows my mind. 

KS: But what’s different is that teenagers now had the internet–like the full-fledged, information boom, social media version of the internet–from when they were in single digits, whereas we were already in college when that happened. When Tavi was 8 she had access to the history of everything that was ever cool or influential at her fingertips–the fashion of every subculture, the music of every underground band, every decade’s most important films..

JB: Yeah, technology is a huge part of it, but I also think we now live in a world where “dreams are possible.” Maybe it’s something to do with reality shows, or the phenomenon of internet celebrities, but today there’s just the sense that if you want to do or make something, you can do it by yourself. You don’t even need to go anywhere–you don’t need to move to LA and get an agent, or be signed by a record label, you can just put something on YouTube and if it’s good someone will find you.

KS: True… although I suddenly feel self-conscious that this conversation is making us seem really old. Like, ‘There’s this thing called the internet that makes dreams come true!”

JB: “All these kids out there… using YouTube!” It’s sad.

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Serious question though – I’ll be starting to conduct face to face interviews in the near future and would appreciate any tips. Your questions are always so well thought-out. What’s ending an interview like, also? Honestly not sure if it’s like a one night stand we-should-do-this-again kind of thing.

Hi! My name is Karley Sciortino. This is a blog intended to trick strangers into thinking my life is more exciting than it actually is.

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