Andrew James Matfin Bell
,
Billingham, Stockton on Tees, England, UK
Birthday
1986-03-14
Occupation
Actor
Spouse(s)
Evan Rachel Wood (m. 2012; div. 2014) Kate Mara (m. 2017)
Years Active
2000–present
Biography
Andrew James Matfin Bell is an English actor and dancer. He rose to prominence for his debut role in Billy Elliot (2000), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He is also known for his roles in the films King Kong (2005), Jumper (2008), The Adventures of Tintin (2011), Snowpiercer (2013), and Fantastic Four (2015), as well as starring as Abraham Woodhull in the television series Turn: Washington's Spies (2014).
In 1999, he was chosen from a field of over 2,000 boys for the role of Billy Elliot, an 11-year-old boy who dismays his working-class widowed father and elder brother by taking up ballet. He also appeared in Close and True, an ITV legal drama shown in 2000, which starred Robson Green, James Bolam and Susan Jameson.
Bell served as Honorary Jury President of the 2001 Giffoni Film Festival. In 2002, he appeared as the disabled servant Smike in an adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby and a young soldier in Deathwatch. In the following years, he portrayed a teenager on the run in Undertow, a gun-toting pacifist in Dear Wendy, a disaffected Southern California teenager in The Chumscrubber, and the young Jimmy in the 2005 film version of King Kong. Also in 2005, he starred opposite Evan Rachel Wood in the Green Day video "Wake Me Up When September Ends", directed by Samuel Bayer. In 2007, he played the title character in Hallam Foe – for which he was nominated for the best actor award at the British Independent Film Awards – and appeared as himself in lonelygirl15 spin-off KateModern. He had roles in two 2008 films: the sci-fi film Jumper and the World War II drama Defiance. In the second film he plays Asael Bielski, the third of the Bielski Brothers, leaders of a partisan group that saved 1,200 lives during the Holocaust.
In 2009, it was announced Bell would play the title role in the motion capture film The Adventures of Tintin, alongside British double act Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The film was released in 2011. He also starred in the 2011 films The Eagle as Esca and Jane Eyre as St John Rivers. In 2013, he starred alongside James McAvoy in the film Filth and appeared as Edgar in Snowpiercer.
Since 2014, Bell has appeared as Abraham Woodhull in Turn: Washington's Spies; the fourth and final season began airing in April 2017. In 2015, he played the Thing in the Fantastic Four reboot.
In 2017, Bell had starring roles in 6 Days and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool.
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