When it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in May, Skin—Oscar-winning director Guy Nattiv’s blistering based-on-real-events drama about a neo-Nazi who turns his back on hate—immediately took its place alongside American History X and The Believer as a preeminent cinematic portrait of white nationalism. And thanks to the escalating rhetoric of President Donald Trump, the film has only become more timely since that auspicious debut.
It’s also a thrilling showcase for one of the year’s finest performances courtesy of Jamie Bell, whose radical transformation into Bryon “Babs” Widner comes partly via a collection of tattoos covering his arms, hands, torso, neck and—most terrifying of all—face.
A walking billboard for bigotry, Widner lives his life according to an ugly ethos inherited from his gang leaders and surrogate parents, played by Bill Camp and Vera Farmiga. And yet in Bell’s deft hands, he proves to be more than merely a one-dimensional monster. Through a romantic relationship with single mother Julie (Patti Cake$’s Danielle Macdonald), as well as the aid of African-American activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins (Mike Coulter), Widner discovers an unlikely path to redemption—albeit one marked by arduous sacrifice and pain.
For the 33-year-old British actor, it’s a decided departure from his best-known role in 2000’s Billy Elliot. Nonetheless, Bell’s fearless and multifaceted turn dispels any doubts about his capacity to become something he’s not—and as Bell happily admits, he’s certainly a far cry from Widner.
In a wide-ranging conversation before Skin’s release (in theaters and on demand July 26), the gregarious star talked about the risks and rewards of tackling his latest role in this current climate, the growing scourge of white nationalism, and whether it’s possible to truly reform those with evil in their hearts, and on their bodies.
How uncomfortable was it to spend day after day decorated with those facial tattoos?
First of all, we made the movie for literally less than peanuts. Obviously, we budgeted to get the movie done. But there was a point in the schedule where we were a few weeks down the line, we could see the end of the tunnel, and there was this very difficult week because we were doing nights and I was getting kicked in the nuts and thrown on the ground a lot. I remember saying to the makeup guy Stevie, “I can’t wait to get this shit off. Just to take it all off and be myself for the weekend.” And he was like, “Yeah… about that. We’ve run out of money, we can’t afford to print a whole new set, so you’re going to have to keep them on.” Which meant that for a good week or so, I was walking around Kingston, New York, looking like Bryon.
Suddenly, no one wanted to hang out with me [laughs]. I was eating all my meals alone. I was barely coming out of my room. I didn’t go to any bars, because I thought that’s the last place I should be. And that’s the way we did it. What’s interesting is, when you have them on and you’re in the real world, there’s a tendency of human beings, when they see something really scary or something that’s intimidating or frightening, to look away and not acknowledge it. I think that’s just our instinct. And that’s what people did. I think that’s the danger here, because if we choose to look away from this stuff and ignore it, it grows and festers and we get a real fucking problem. And I think that’s where we are.
Did wearing the tattoos, and seeing them in the mirror, also take an emotional/psychological toll?
I obviously take the work very seriously, and I love acting; I love the places you can go with it. But I do consider myself someone that, when you take it all off, you just leave it alone and that’s it. Then you put it back on, and you do it again. It’s called acting. I’m an actor! But it has to permeate you, and your true nature. When the film was done, I went home and was reintegrating back into life, and my wife [Kate Mara] at some point was like, “Can you go take a walk, or just jog it off or something, because you’re hostile.” I was completely unaware of it; I thought I was being normal.
The other thing is, when you have it on, it’s very powerful. You look at someone, and they recoil. I don’t normally have that [laughs]. Usually when people look at me, they go, “Very non-intimidating, English, personable. Wasn’t he in that movie, the dancing kid?” But when I was dressed like that, and I just looked at someone and they were terrified of me, it’s a powerful feeling. Which is intoxicating, and you use that for the character. It’s why Bryon did it: he wanted to scare the shit out of people. And it worked. So I’m not going to lie, it was a thing you could use.
Did you have any reservations about taking on this role, especially in the current climate?
[White nationalists] have much more threatening people than me to worry about. These are very unpleasant, dangerous and scary people. There’s a criminal faction of this that’s very real. So yes, to a degree. I tried not to think about that! I think it was more, am I going to be able to do it? Am I going to be able to make people believe that I could do something like this? I’m not the first actor to portray someone like this. You think of Ryan Gosling, and Edward Norton—those are the two notable performances. But yes, you do think about it a little bit. You try to push it to the back of the mind as much as you can.
The movie begins with a 2009 neo-Nazi march that resembles the 2017 Charlottesville rally. Was that latter incident, and/or Trump, a motivation for wanting to make Skin?
Five years ago, when Guy was trying to get this made, a lot of people were saying, firstly, no, we’re not going to make it; and secondly, this doesn’t exist. This is such a small faction of this country, it’s in the shadows, and it’s not a real thing anymore. Cut to all the things you’re talking about, and suddenly there was this real urgency to get it told quickly. To be frank, all those things [Charlottesville, and Trump] made me want to do it less, because I felt like, why are we shining a light on this? Why are we choosing to do this? Knowing Guy’s history, and about his family experiencing the atrocities of the Holocaust, and him being an Israeli Jew, he wanted to tell this story, and I really saw the conflict in that, and thought that was interesting.
But the other thing was, I wouldn’t have done this movie if I didn’t think it honestly depicted the roots of evil and intolerance, as well as the roots of compassion and kindness, and how those things can intersect and affect change, positively. I’m hoping this film doesn’t tie anything up in a nice little bow; life isn’t like that. I hope it is a wake-up call and a call to conversation. If people don’t look at the monster in the room, it grows, so we have to call it out and see it for what it is.
Was there a concern that you might be comforting people with a redemption tale that, however true, is the exception to the rule?
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a chance that the film goes, “He’s not that bad, really!” I was always like, fuck, it can’t be that! That’s not the movie we’re making. I was constantly checking in with Guy going, “What movie are we making?” That was a conversation we had to keep on having, because I needed to be reassured. Danielle [Macdonald] was the same. We had to keep pushing back. It was a real battle sometimes between me and Guy, to sketch that out. Even the moment when Danielle opens the door at the end, I was still going, who’s he going to be? Let’s not say in this moment that he’s a better person. Let’s ask, what’s he going to do? Racism is inherited, it’s learned, it’s environmental—what’s he going to give to this kid, and does the cycle end here? Can it end? Maybe that’s the better question, and let’s not give the answer to it.
Is Widner unique? Or can evil people change for the better?
There are many people who’ve been involved in something like this and come out on the other side. I’ve read their testimonies. There are a lot of people who do advocacy and outreach in their communities, which is incredibly commendable. And sometimes when I see [these reformed neo-Nazis], I think, “He looks like a good fucking guy to me!” And other times I’m like, not so much.
It depends on the current climate, to be honest. I think if we made this movie under an Obama administration, the movie would be much different, and it would be received differently. I think people’s extension of compassion is different. Their tolerance level is completely different, because it starts from the top-down. So for me, it changes on a daily basis. I think what Bryon has achieved and overcome, and what he has to continue to persevere through, and the reckoning and atoning that he does, alone—I can’t imagine what that’s like. I hate feeling guilty. So to live with that, I can’t imagine what that must be like. I do have sympathy for that. And yet, he did choose that path, and those are his choices… I don’t know, I’m always flipping that coin a little bit. You can see this is a moral conundrum for me [laughs].
In the opening white-power march, someone yells out, “Maybe we should just make them leave,” which was startlingly relevant given Trump’s recent comments. Are you disheartened that the film is becoming more timely as it makes its way to theaters?
I was doing an interview yesterday, and I can be quite nihilistic in my approach and outlook sometimes—I think it’s a sense of protection. I said, “We’re fucked, right? We’re all just fucked at this point.” Daryle Lamont Jenkins was doing the interview with me, and he goes, “We’re not.” And I thought, thank God for people like him. Quite frankly, thank God that in that scene, there is that opposing force. We have to remember that there are people out there in the faces of these [white nationalists], representing what is right, and morally opposing this thing; that without them, there would be no opposition. You have to see the light in that too. You have to see that there are these advocates of good and right, and be grateful for that.
When I saw the “Send Her Back” rally, someone asked me, what was your research like for Skin? It looked like that rally—only it was in Germany, it was about 1936. That’s what it was. It’s exactly the fucking same. So yeah, it’s really eerie.
Jamie Bell stars in Guy Nattiv’s Skin.
A24What was it like meeting with Widner?
In our interviews, I felt like I had good questions, and he was responsive to things. Maybe he was holding back, but I never felt like I really got in there and got the thing I wanted. I’ve experienced that with other subjects that I’ve interviewed as well. I think as an actor, you’re always wanting the key—the thing that unlocks it for you and lets it all make sense. That clearly didn’t happen, because he’s so far away from who I am as a human being. It just wasn’t going to happen. But I anticipated seeing the monster, and it wasn’t there at all. I mean, if you didn’t know what he looked like with all his tattoos beforehand, you’d never know that he even had them in the first place. That was the first thing that was so striking: that he has been given a completely new lease on life.
They’re totally invisible?
If you look in the hairline, you can see a little discoloration. But no one’s looking at that. And if he’s wearing long sleeves—because obviously all the body stuff is still there. It took two years just to get his face and hand tattoos off; it would take five to six years to get the rest of it off. That was immediately striking. But then also, the sense of paranoia I got from him, because he’s a little obsessive. He smokes like a chimney. He’s a family man; he’d interrupt the interviews to go pick up the kids. You know, it was a very intense and bizarre week, and I went alone, and it really felt like I was stepping into another world. It was useful—I did take most of it to heart and used it—but you’re always looking for the answer you’re not going to get. It has to come from you.
Did he share his reaction to the film with you?
He sent me a couple of texts that were very flattering about the work, and he was very grateful that I’d taken it so seriously. I’m sure it’s a hard watch for him. I mean, it must be. I hope he found some catharsis with it, and maybe some… I was about to say peace, but I don’t know if that’s appropriate. But it must have been cathartic, for sure. How could it not be?
Daryle Jenkins photographs white nationalists, IDs them, and then puts that information online to out them. Do you think that’s a useful strategy in confronting this menace?
It’s interesting, because clearly as an opposing force, antifa and all that stuff has gotten a bit of a rap about being enforcers, and meeting violence with violence. Which I think is a complicated position to have, because if no one’s opposing this… I am grateful for what they do. I really am. I do think our film, and the way it’s depicting these kinds of people, feels outdated to a degree. The skinhead generation, with the leather jackets and jeans and Dr. Martens boots—they’re not like that anymore. They’re wearing suits. They look relatively quaffed and well-dressed, like out of a J. Crew ad. So we already feel a little bit behind the times.
In terms of exposing people, I’m OK with it, because there’s some measure of accountability. If I’m an employer, and I don’t share those views, I don’t want that person working for me—especially if his face is on the front page of the newspaper. I think we’re both thinking about the same guy with the tiki torch and white polo shirt. I don’t want him working for my company, and I don’t want him dating my daughter. So in a way, I don’t mind that. But could he change? Isn’t that what this movie is asking you to think about? What I’ve just said—am I throwing him into the trash bin of Hell by saying, “You’ll never date my daughter!” I don’t know, maybe I’m already forgetting the message of the film! It’s complicated.
Jamie Bell stars in Guy Nattiv’s Skin.
A24Maybe my question is outdated, because so many of these guys, like Richard Spencer, go on TV and make themselves public figures.
Isn’t that the bigger issue, not having accountability? Normalizing it is really fucking dangerous. I don’t think you should invite Richard Spencer on your TV show. I think that’s part of the issue. Let’s not give them a platform. Reduce the platform, strip it away, and don’t normalize, because I think that really endangers us as a society. It’s not normal to have these opinions and views.
And it’s not good for them to be normal.
No, of course not. It’s like what Daryle says about it: he can’t affect the change; it has to be from them. They have to be a willing participant to want to change. He can only open the door. So maybe that guy with the tiki torch and the white polo shirt, it all has to come from him. And maybe he can. I don’t know. I think that most people, because of that [news photo], would say “no fucking way.”
After Skin, was it vital to take on a project like Rocketman?
Yeah, I went to dance and sing Elton John songs! I got to play an incredibly loving, caring, tolerant, accepting person in Bernie Taupin, which is who he is. I had a great time on that movie. Obviously, there are some heavy things in there too, but for the most part, at least for my character, the things I got to do in that movie were very fun. So that was a relief. I remember Guy sent me a text when the announcement for Rocketman came out, saying, “Congratulations. This is great.” And I was like, “Yeah, I just needed something a bit lighter.”
