Skin, the haunting true story of Bryon Widner leaving his racism and self-loathing behind, is currently out in select theaters and available digitally. Director Guy Nattiv won an Oscar last year with a short film of the same name, also dealing with the topic of white supremacist movements, but now he’s branched out into feature-length and delved into a real man’s life. The film features a tour de force performance by Jamie Bell as the man in question, and tattoos covering his body onscreen aren’t the only mark of his artistic transformation. The dedicated actor recently sat down with Screen Rant to share his thoughts on the movie and his hope that Widner’s tale serves as a wake-up call.
This was a total transformation. I hadn’t seen you in anything like this, and it really seemed like you immerse yourself in this. But I want to know, how did you get involved with Guy in Skin?
How much research did you actually do on Bryon’s life, and how did meeting him change your perspective?
Jamie Bell: It was actually through Oren Moverman, our producer. I really liked his films. You know, I really loved The Messenger and his work with Ben Foster. I thought those performances were quite fantastic. And I met him for a film that he was considering directing. It was over Christmas, and we met in New York. It became very clear quite quickly that that movie was unlikely to get married, and it still hasn’t.
We kind of moved off that topic and really talked about family, as I was about to get engaged to my wife. So we talked about that and commitment and kids and all that stuff, and we had just a really lovely chat. Then very soon, the next year, I got a script from Oren. He said, “My friend Guy is directing this, and I think you would be perfect to play Brian.” I remember reading the script and thinking, “What on Earth did he see in that meeting, that he thought that I could play somebody like this?” You know, I wonder what kind of vibe I must be giving off.
Then I met with Guy and heard his story about how he tried to shop the script around for five years, and his response was no – mostly because they didn’t think that these people existed, or it was such a kind of subculture of this country that it only existed in the shadows and really small pockets. And that how Trump has been elected, and suddenly there are these people in the streets and in broad daylight and on the front of newspapers. Suddenly, there was an urgency to the project.
The opportunity of the role, in terms of really changing myself, was something that I hadn’t really done before. It was a chance to really stretch my muscles, but also – more importantly, I think – to shed light on something that felt genuinely quite urgent. Asking questions; very specific questions of compassion and extending forgiveness. Is it possible that people can change? All this stuff, I thought was quite useful and quite relevant for people to talk about.
Guy avoided several opportunities to exploit violence against minorities. Instead, we see how corrosive hate is when the violence turns on members of their own family. What was it like exploring that theme on set?
Jamie Bell: When I met him, there was a lot of the script that didn’t really answer a lot of questions for me. Meaning, there’s very little about him before he was involved in this movement. And that, to me, was very crucial that I knew that and that I heard it from him. And also, Guy has a very specific take; a very specific perspective. Despite all the research that I did – not even about Bryon, but about these kinds of people and this kind of movement, the certain ideologies – hearing it from him was always going to be the most valuable to me.
I met him with a lot of trepidation. I obviously learned a lot about his life and knew what kind of a person he was. And I was surprised to meet a person who was extremely welcoming, articulate; a real family man. He’d often stop the interviews because he’d have to go pick up his kids from school. But also a man who lives with intense paranoia and intense guilt. And he will forever be dealing with the reckoning of the choices he’s made.
So it was very eye opening. It was very useful. I did consider it my kind of obligation to go and introduce myself to him, you know?
What do you think it was about Julie that made Bryon so sure he needed to escape for her?
Jamie Bell: I mean, I think it is interesting that within these groups, there’s a lot of violence towards each other. I think, for my character at least, what I think is interesting is the point where we meet him, I think he’s completely forgotten what he’s even mad about. Or why he hates these people, or what the ideology even is. I think he’s so lost in the sense of alcoholism; violence, reward, and that cycle continues. And he’s kind of, in a way, been indoctrinated. He’s been betrayed by these people who he thinks care for him, you know?
So, for me, the journey of the character is really one of coming to an awakening; of coming to a consciousness; of going, like, “What the fuck have I done with my life? I’m not even sure I believe in this shit anymore. I don’t even know what it means.”
And he was very honest about that. I think Bryon, to a certain extent, would say, “At a certain point I’d completely forgotten why I’m supposed to hate the Jews.” He literally had completely misunderstood and completely forgotten what their ideology was. So I do think it’s interesting that a lot of it is about infighting. It was a very toxic kind of power that Bill Camp and Vera Farmiga’s characters have over him. He’s like a puppet on their strings. That theme for me was very important.
A film like Skin is obviously very relevant to this time and place, with the rise of white supremacist movements and attempted curtailing of civil liberties. What are you hoping this film says to audiences?
Jamie Bell: Stability, I think. When he goes to her house, I think he’s like, “Oh, wow. You have a house.” There’s a calming element to her. There’s also a spark in her; there’s something that’s quite ferocious about her that he’s used to.
But yet, at the same time, he understands that she has responsibilities. I think he sees these kids open up a different valve to him that he maybe didn’t have or didn’t think he had. I mean, obviously, he has compassion because he takes care of this dog. That’s the one thing that he actually protects and takes care. And I think that then becomes an extension of these children too. He sees that there’s something within him that could be a father.
She kind of awakens him. She brings him to that state of consciousness that he really is looking for. But, at the same time, they still do a lot of irrational things. Julie as a mother is still very irrational. What is she doing, bringing her kids around this man? That doesn’t seem like the best thing to do.
I think both me and Danielle would constantly go to Guy and say, “I don’t know why these characters are doing these things.” And he would say, “But that’s because you’re, relatively, a rational human being. These people aren’t. You have to stop looking at this through the prism of being a rational person.” These are irrational people; they’re going to do irrational things. And the more we understood that, more it did kind of make sense to us. Weirdly.
True. We talked to Danielle earlier this month, and she said that you made sure not to bring scary Jamie around her and the kids. How important was it to you to craft those two sides of him?
Jamie Bell: I’m hoping that it is a wake-up call. That it’s kind of a call to a conversation about how far are we willing to go with forgiveness? How do people get involved in these groups? Who are the people that are on the front lines trying to oppose this?
Racism and intolerance and bigotry is learned. It is inherited; it is handed down from generation to generation to generation. It’s by no mistake that at the end of this film, there is a threshold moment where a door is opened, and he meets his son for the first time. And the question is, is does the cycle continue now? Or does it stop? You can take the hate and intolerance off the skin, but what lies beneath? Has that been change completely, and how does he affect his kid’s life? What kind of world is he going to grow up in? And I like that, you know – I don’t think that this film is tying anything up in a bow. I think the conversation must go on, and more questions must be asked. I’m someone who has a hard time with forgiveness. So, for me, this is really challenging me as a human.
There’s also some hope in this film, which is about the kindness and generosity of complete strangers. I think that is a hopeful element to the world that we currently have, which is a s***hole.
Thank you so much for your time. Amazing, amazing job.
Jamie Bell: I was completely unaware that I was choosing to do that. Or maybe I was doing it unconsciously. I probably was trying to protect these kids. Because for a child to be in some of those scenes, it’s just extremely challenging and disturbing. As someone who has kids, I think I’m probably more aware of their experience.
But you know, my obligation and job here is to always kind of portray the truth of the character. So obviously, there’s a lightness that Brian has when he’s around them, because he cares for them. He’s finding that he is becoming more sensitive; that he is becoming more caring, more compassionate. And that’s a surprise to him. I think, at certain points, he’s trying to cover that with aggression and intimidation. But then he ends up not being able to help it. He does kind of fall in love with them and ultimately chooses them.
But the hardest part of the character for me was always going to be just this level of detachment. Detachment from all those things: from empathy, kindness and compassion. Purely because that’s so far away from who I am as a human being. And making sure that walking around with that air and making that believable to people was always going to be the thing that made the performance work or not. So, inhabiting that and kind of crafting that throughout the film was certainly the hardest part of doing it.
More: Danielle Macdonald Interview for Skin
