Holiday Habits

Jamie Bell

“WHENEVER I LOOK BACK OVER THE previous year I’ve always spent it travelling between countries, but it’s all for work. To promote [new movie] The Eagle, earlier this month I was in Paris, today I’m in London, and so on. To go somewhere just to relax and to have a holiday is very rare now.

“I’m from a town called Billingham on the north-east coast of the UK. I live in Los Angeles now and as a northern guy I definitely see myself as an outsider and an interloper. But of course you also meet lots of other British people who are out there, and I’m always back and forth between the UK and elsewhere.

“To make The Eagle, it had to look like we were in Roman Britain, so we filmed in the countryside in Hungary and Scotland. In Scotland we got a few hill walkers passing through and being startled to find themselves suddenly surrounded by Romans – that was pretty funny. The Highland areas where we filmed were very remote, because that’s what the film needed – a sense of scope, of crossing a frontier into an unknown world. Kevin [Macdonald], the director, really fought to get those difficult locations. The crew would have to walk up hills in the dark carrying heavy equipment, and some of our sets would just blow away or fall into the sea. It was a really stupid way to make a film in a lot of ways! But there was just no other way to do it.

“I’ve also completed filming as Tintin, in a Spielberg film of the Belgian comics. As it’s a motion-capture film, there was no set at all for that one, just a room with cameras in the ceiling to capture your movements, and you have a camera attached to your head to film your face. You can’t have anything reflective in the room as that interferes with the technology, so it’s a very bland environment, but one where you can be really creative. I’ve seen some of the finished sequences and it’s the best motion-capture I’ve ever seen. To anyone who loves Tintin, I’d say, be reassured that it has been made out of love for the books, with respect for upholding their legacy. It’s going to be amazing.”

THE EAGLE IS OUT NOW. THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN IS OUT LATER THIS YEAR.