OPENING nationwide this August 5 from 20th Century Fox, Fantastic Four is the contemporary reimagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team. It centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend-turned-enemy.
Set in contemporary New York, this retelling focuses on the Four before they become a team—when they were four young idealistic adventurers who make a headstrong leap into the unknown.
Fantastic Four focuses on the human drama of relatable characters that at first don’t perceive their new physical abilities as advantages, but as daunting, if not impossible, challenges.
The fourth member of the nascent team is Ben Grimm, who lives with his mother and older brothers in a small home at his family’s home business, Grimm Salvage Yard, on the wrong side of the tracks in Oyster Bay. Ben forges an unlikely friendship with the neighborhood egghead and inventor, Reed Richards, when he discovers Reed stealing parts for his latest creation from the junkyard of Ben’s family.
Years later, after Reed enlists Ben to join his ill-fated teleportation mission at the Baxter Institute, Ben is transformed into a superstrong, 6-foot, 8-inch, thousand-pound being whose body is covered in rock, making him impervious to physical damage. Jamie Bell, whose career was launched in the title performance in the British drama Billy Elliott, was chosen to play the strong-willed character.
While still a teenager, Jamie Bell shot to worldwide fame starring in the title role of Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot. He received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and the British Independent Film Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in the film. Bell then went onto portray Smike in Douglas McGrath’s screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, for which he and his colleagues shared the National Board of Review Award for Best Acting by an Ensemble.
Recently, Bell starred in the second season of AMC’s Turn. Bell stars in the lead role of Abe Woodhull, who bands together with a group of childhood friends to form The Culper Ring, an unlikely group of spies who turn the tide in America’s fight for independence.
Last year Bell appeared in Joon-ho Bong’s Snowpiercer opposite Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton. In 2014 he also starred in John Baird’s Filth opposite James McAvoy, Eddie Marsan and Imogen Poots. That same year, Bell appeared in Lars Von Trier’s controversial Nymphomaniac: Volume II alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf and Willem Dafoe. In 2012 Bell starred in Asger Leth’s Man on a Ledge, opposite Sam Worthington and Ed Harris. In 2011 Bell played the titular role in Steven Spielberg’s motion capture 3D The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, as Hergé’s legendary young adventurer. That same year, Bell starred in Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle, Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre and Carl Tibbetts’s The Retreat.
In the following Q&A, Jamie Bell—young yet already with a veteran’s film résumé—talks about his experience in filming the thrilling superhero action movie of the year, Fantastic Four.
Tell us about how you got the role?
Josh (Trank, the director) and I talked on the phone for two hours and after discussing the entire movie, I was totally sold. That’s just how Josh is as a filmmaker. He’s very specific. He has really good taste, and he’s genuinely trying to do something different with this film, and that’s admirable. It’s a huge responsibility. And once I got off the phone with Josh, I felt as if I’d seen Fantastic Four—and I liked the movie. What’s great about it is it doesn’t sound like a superhero movie, yet it still is. It has all the beats of a superhero film, but it feels like an experience of four individuals going through something crazy together and coming together and finding each other. That’s really the heart of the film and I connected with that.
How would you describe your character, Ben Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing, in this new Fantastic Four?
He is someone who is at that point in his life where he doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. Ben doesn’t have a lot of prospects. He’s as average as they come. The only thing that makes him stand out is that he’s very protective of himself and of his friends. Ben also has problems with his siblings and he gets bullied a lot, so he’s constantly trying to prove himself. When he’s intimidated, he likes to intimidate. But I think at heart he’s a sweet guy.
With all the physical transformation, what was it you did to characterize The Thing?
The way I thought about it is that he’s actually the same 18-, 19-year-old guy who’s just trapped. He has the mind-set he had prior to the transformation, so he’s still a human in there. The thoughts or feelings of the performance don’t necessarily become “I’m now this huge thing.” You just have to think of him as a young man who’s trapped.
How was it filming while wearing the performance-capture suit?
The physicality of the role all comes from the movement, like when I was a dancer as a kid. The stilts were not easy, but they were very useful. Having that extra height on set and for the character does change your mind-set a little. I mean, you’re intimidating.
Do you think there are any particular themes, maybe about modern families, that the film is tapping into?
Yes and no. I don’t think people need to be blood-related to be family. Families aren’t 24 children these days. The new construct of family is whatever you want it to be. I kind of think this is a movie about orphans, and I think in some way we’re all a bit orphaned these days. We make more of our own choices.
You end up finding whoever you find. So I think it may reflect a contemporary culture that’s not so straightforward anymore. Family can actually be whatever you want it to be.
We have seen very light, poppy comic-book movies and very dark, tortured ones. Where on the scale would you say Fantastic Four sits?
That’s a good question. I can’t say “the middle,” because this movie doesn’t exist in the middle, and most things do. The truth is it’s a law onto itself.
So you’re rejecting the scale!
I think so. [Laughs] Get rid of that scale! What I think is, if a friend of yours sees the movie and you ask, “How was Fantastic Four?” I think the answer will be: “You just have to see it.” Because it’s not doing what a lot of comic-book movies are doing. It’s not X-Men—though I admire what they’ve done with that franchise. It’s not Captain America and all that stuff.
Those films have a certain formula and you can’t get away from it, and they work. But Fantastic Four isn’t playing to those rules, so I’m really excited to be part of something that isn’t doing that. I do know that when people come out of the movie, because of Josh’s dedication to it, they’ll go, “I haven’t seen anything like that.” It’s a real experience.