Jamie Bell Grapples With Fatherhood In ‘All Of Us Strangers’, Prepares To Tap Into Fred Astaire, And Is Ready For “Action” As A Director

deadline.com:

Spare a moment for the degree of difficulty encountered by Jamie Bell as he grappled with the character director Andrew Haigh had written for him on the pages of All of Us Strangers.

How does a 37-year-old actor, best known to audiences for his role as a preteen ballet prodigy, wrap his head around playing a father to the 47-year-old Andrew Scott, resurrected from an era before Bell was born?

And how does he navigate not only paternal responsibility, but also the complication of being, impossibly, a generation younger than his own son? “I’ve been doing this for so long now,” says Bell, referring to the profession that found its way to him. “But I still have no f*cking idea what I’m doing.” This is who Jamie Bell is, determined to pass any sense of accomplishment onto others.

Claire Foy was in the same boat as him, he notes, playing Scott’s younger mother, and both actors helped him get there, along with Haigh. “When you go to work with such brilliant actors who do know what they’re doing, and they have a measure of control, technique and ability to fall back on, which you don’t have, they help you figure it out.” Bell is, obviously, being too humble, and few who have seen the finished film could doubt his achievement.