Jamie Bell quotes:

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

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.

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 never really sympathised with Peter Parker.

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.

I excelled in English while I was at school.

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

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.

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

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

Inner demons? Got none of them.

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

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.

Dancing is like riding a bike.

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

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

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 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.

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

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 sympathize with every kitchen porter.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I'm still pretty terrified of heights.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I'm awkward around girls.

I think everyone still thinks I'm 13.

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?"

I wanted to be a journalist for a long time.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Wherever the good work is I'll go.

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.

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

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 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.

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 have a problem with heights in general - and climbing!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.