Jamie Bell was once best known as the working class ballet dancer Billy Elliot, but that was in 2000. He has since appeared in a wide range of movies covering several genre. He played Griffin O’Conner in Jumper, Ralph “Iggy” Ignatowski in Flags of Our Fathers, St. John Rivers in Jane Eyre, Tintin, and most recently “K” in Nymphomaniac and Ben Grimm / The Thing in the new The Fantastic Four movie. He is a man of many talents. But less about his acting career, how does Jamie Bell stay in great shape?
Tap dancing
Jamie describes himself as a tap dancer as well as an actor. Tap dancing is a passion of his and something that he practices often. This is a great way the stay fit and slim. In fact, all forms of dance will help to maintain a healthy figure, so long as you do enough of it.
He recently shared on Twitter than his favorite tap step is the Hop Shuffle Down.
” I dance. Badly. All the time.” Jamie Bell @1jamiebell Mar 12
Walking the dog
In 2011 he told Metro that the only exercise he does is walk the dog. Apparently he got in shape for The Eagle. in which he stripped to the waist and wielded a sword and shield, by nothing other than walking his dog. The cast of 300 and Spartacus, take note, you were doing it all wrong!
He did explain that the lack of training was actually to be more realistic. He told Metro: “There was no trainer or on-set gym happening. ‘We wanted to try to be as authentic as possible and my character, Esca, is a slave. If we bulked him up, it would look completely ridiculous – particularly on me, because I’m a tiny guy.”
He attributes is lean and muscular frame to years of dancing!
Jamie’s Diet
Jamie loves cereal and says that if there was one food he could eat forever, it would be cereal. He does sometimes change his diet, and finds it frustrating when everybody starts to chip in with suggestions on how he can improve it.
“It’s funny, when you change your diet, everyone is suddenly a nutritional expert.” Jamie Bell @1jamiebell Jun 2012
Jamie basically just keeps a close eye on how much he eats. When he knows that a big meal is coming up he will skip breakfast so that he can enjoy the feast at lunchtime.
Note – Jamie Bell’s Twitter page appears to have been deleted now.