Hello Jamie Bell. Give me the hard sell. Why were you drawn to the role of SAS siege hero Rusty Firmin? (1)

Why? It’s a good question. My manager’s over there, we should ask her …

Was it fun to play a hardman with a handlebar moustache?

Not really. That isn’t my world at all, machismo; that isn’t where I feel comfortable. I liked the human elements: they were in there for six days, ready to go and blow stuff up, but they were just drinking tea and watching snooker. So that’s insane: what kind of training have you had that you’re so disassociated from the thing you’re about to do?

What sort of training did you do?

We did five days of running through buildings with people shooting at us. They’d make us do a bunch of pull-ups on a bar before we ate food. They would shout at us and tell us to do it faster, and have us run a circuit in the amount of time it took them to clear the building. I was terrified, I was like: “Stop firing those fucking guns at me.” It was intense. I mean, I say it was intense – to be fair, it wasn’t even like a real boot camp.

You once said you were surprised you’d kept working as an actor. (2) Why?

I didn’t set out on a voyage. Someone said: “You’ve got a ticket,” and I took it. Growing up, I felt relatively inexperienced. There’s another way to approach [acting], which is it that informs you about who you are and what you can bring to something. My intention is to go deeper with myself and improve.

How do you improve if you don’t watch your films, though? (3)

I think you prepare in a different way, and work with others. I was quite isolated with my approach a lot of the time. It would just be me in a hotel room going, like: “I’ve gone as far as I can go.” And realising that and saying, “OK, I need some help” can lead you down some interesting avenues.

So you’re saying that you can be a better actor by collaborating with other people?

Yeah, with someone who’s more experienced than you are. On the last project I did, I worked with this lady for weeks, going through the script page by page. You know: “What’s he thinking? What’s he feeling? This is a smell that you should have when you go into this scene; what’s a smell that reminds you of this?” It’s a level of preparation I had never considered, and if you haven’t done that stuff before it’s quite exciting. Maybe it’s all bollocks. In fact, it is all bollocks. But I’m willing to jump off and see where it can go.

Sometimes it doesn’t always go to plan. Why did Fantastic Four tank like it did? (4)

From the outset it seemed cool, and I liked the cast. I love Michael [B Jordan], love Miles [Teller] – he’s a great actor – and Kate [Mara] is great (5). You set out with the best of intentions, and personalities clash (6), there are changes to a script at short notice, a studio gets involved, there are too many cooks … I also think there was ill-will towards the movie before we even started. And when people saw that the film was in trouble, they killed it.

When blockbusters like that don’t succeed, how do you manage your ego?

Disappointments are disappointments. I certainly don’t think I’m above myself enough to go, “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” because you invest in things so much, and you want things to work. But I try not to let ego rule me. I’m the first to say I don’t know something. For example, this whole thing about trying to go deeper with acting is more about allowing myself to say, “I don’t know how to do it” sometimes.

With all of the young lovers and sex fiends (7) you keep playing, do you ever feel as if you’ve finally left Billy Elliot behind?

I would be a fool to think that I have. Every time someone gives me an opportunity I always feel very grateful for it. And I felt quite grateful to have had people with good taste [after that] say, “You’re an idiot, work with this person, he’s called Thomas Vinterberg,” [even when] I’m like: “Who the fuck is that person?” They’ve basically extended my career for a certain number of years.

But are you closer to the actor that you want to be? And what is that?

I think I’m approaching it … The last movie I did, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, with Annette Bening, was based on the experiences of another real person (8) and their real-life experiences. I sat with [the man I was portraying] for a long time. I did watch that one. It was torture. I felt like I was in a car crash. On the way to the screening I bought a pair of headphones because I was, like: “Maybe I can just block out the sound and wear a hood and not have to properly watch it.”

Footnotes

(1) In the forthcoming film 6 Days. It tells the story of the six-day siege in 1980 at London’s Iranian embassy, and is essentially one long Mark Strong voiceover. Bell has precisely eight lines in it, grunts a bit and chews a lot of gum.

(2) An interview in which Bell is “grilled” by his mate Robert Pattinson. Also in that interview: how Jamie Bell’s spirit animal is a baby lamb.

(3) He refuses to watch any of his films. Possibly even Billy Elliot.

(4) Fantastic Four was one of 2015’s biggest box-office flops, losing an estimated $60m.

(5) You would hope so, really, because Bell and Kate Mara recently got married.

(6) Teller and Fantastic Four director Josh Trank, in particular, were rumoured to have fought on the set.

(7) He played a serial spanker in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: Volume II.

(8) Peter Turner, who wrote the original memoir, about his love affair with Hollywood actor Gloria Grahame, and how he came to care for her during her cancer battle at his eccentric family’s home in Liverpool.

• Jamie Bell’s film 6 Days is on Netflix.