Jamie Bell found it difficult to shake off the "hostile energy" of his character in ‘Skin’.
The 33-year-old actor stars in the biographical drama as former skinhead group member Bryon Widner, the co-founder of a violent white power group in Indiana called Vinlanders Social Club, who marries a woman called Julie Larsen who – with the help of a black rights activist – helps him turn his back on hate and leave his own organisation.
Jamie confessed that although he can usually disassociate himself from his roles, he found it tough to separate himself from the "angry, standoffish, hostile tight energy" of his alter ego.
In an interview with The Beat, he said: "I always like to think that being an actor, you always can check the role at the door. You take the costume off and you walk off the set and then it’s easy to kind of drop it.
"I did think that I was doing a good job of that. It wasn’t until about a week later once production was done, I was back home and my wife one day was like, ‘Can you just go take a walk or go run it off?’
"I think I was just carrying around this hostile energy. This angry, standoffish, hostile tight energy that I think when you’re in the mix of a small movie like this especially, there’s no real-time to turn off doing many scenes a day.
"There’s no luxury of time. You’re just in the thick of it. I thought I was actually doing okay, but she disagreed. Just walking around with that attitude just can’t be good for you."
Jamie Bell couldn’t shake off ‘hostile energy’ of Skin character
