NO CAUSE FOR ALARM HOLLYWOOD WANTS HIM, BUT 'NICHOLAS NICKLEBY'S' JAMIE BELL IS HAVING TOO MUCH FUN BEING A TEENAGER.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Forget the travel, the limos, the premieres, the parties and the schmoozing. Sometimes the best part of film stardom is early Eminem access.

So says Jamie Bell, who arrives for an interview to promote his film ``Nicholas Nickleby'' wearing a ski cap, listening to a Discman and looking like he could polish off all competitors in a round of Marshall Mathers Jeopardy.

``You've got '8 Mile' out over here and it's not been released in the U.K.,'' says Bell, referring to the recent movie starring the rapper (real name: Mathers). ``It's definitely the movie of the moment for me. I came out of it thinking I could probably take down Mike Tyson.

``Eminem would probably kill me for saying it,'' he continues, ``But it's really a 'Billy Elliot' kind of story. This kid from nowhere who's got nowhere to go is going into a world, like Billy, where he's not really accepted. By the end, he achieves his dream. He finds what he's good at and what he wants to do. It's an inspirational movie.''

Bell, 16, sees the parallels. As a complete unknown, he beat out more than 2,000 actors to snag the title role in the 2000 sleeper hit ``Billy Elliot,'' directed by Stephen Daldry. Two years later, he's still listening to people tell him that the film changed their lives. Billy, a kid from a rural British working-class family, pursues - and achieves - his dream to study ballet. The story in some ways mirrors Bell's own life. Like Billy, he was born in Northern England. Like Billy, Bell used his skills as a dancer as a stepping stone to greater recognition.

And for his next movie, Bell wanted something as far away from the ``happy, dance-y ballet kid that everybody got used to.''

``These offers were coming in from really everywhere, but most of the roles were kind of kiddie roles, the typical kind of thing you see. I didn't want to get typecast into that barrel of actors,'' he says. ``Because that really won't help me with a long-term career, which is what I want to do.''

There's nothing ``typical'' about Smike, the crippled companion of Nicholas Nickleby in director Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Dickens' 1839 novel. Smike is a prototype for Dickens' rogues gallery of abused and exploited children. He's an orphan, he limps, he gets beaten by the despicable school master Wackford Squeers and he melts everyone's heart.

It's a scene-stealing role, says Bell, even amid a showy ensemble that includes Christopher Plummer, Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson, Anne Hathaway, Nathan Lane and Tom Courtenay. Charlie Hunnam (of ``Undeclared'' and Britain's ``Queer as Folk'') plays Nicholas.

Impressive company, but Bell more than holds his own, says McGrath.

``For me, the greatest joy of the film was watching him,'' McGrath (``Emma'') says of Bell. ``He's the youngest person in the film and he could just do anything. It's as if I was coaching a second-grade basketball team and all of a sudden one of the players on my team turned into Michael Jordan.''

High praise, but Bell hopes to eventually be mentioned in the same breath as performers like Leonardo DiCaprio, another former child performer who negotiated the hazards of adolescence on screen and emerged as a respected actor and box-office draw. Bell wants to make his next film in America. A comedy? Not interested. Drama school? Definitely, he says, although probably not until he turns 18.

``I'm kind of exploring my range,'' says Bell, who won a British Academy of Film and Television Award (BAFTA, the British equivalent of an Oscar) for ``Billy Elliot.'' ``I still have a lot to prove as an actor.''

``I learned from Stephen (Daldry) the idea of what's the point in doing something if you're not going to be the best,'' he adds. ``I'm not saying that I am the best by any means, but if you've got that kind of motivation, you're going to achieve something.''

Preparing to play Smike, Bell worked again with a movement choreographer and studied such films as ``My Left Foot'' and ``The Elephant Man.'' He and McGrath decided against giving the character a mental illness, although actors who have played the part in the past - most notably David Threlfall in the nine-hour stage version for the Royal Shakespeare Company - have gone that route.

``You can be limping around in your jeans and a T-shirt in the rehearsal room, and it doesn't feel quite right, but when you get to the set, everything just slips into place,'' says Bell. ``We realize that Smike's not thick at all. It's just that people don't give him a chance to explain himself.''

During a breakfast interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, Bell is animated and polite, although the promotion aspect seems to be what he enjoys least about his work. His mother, Eileen, introduces herself and then disappears (his parents divorced before Jamie was born). Bell eyes a carafe of grapefruit juice, orders a glass and, later, a dish of grapefruit. ``I've got a grapefruit thing going,'' he explains.

He's newly arrived from the film's New York premiere. Home is split between London and his native Billington, a small industrial city in Northern England. Bell confesses he didn't exactly endear himself to some of his neighbors when he was featured in the BBC documentary ``The 'Billy Elliot' Boy.''

``They saw me as kind of a cocky and arrogant kid, but that's just me,'' he says. ``Sometimes people don't understand my ironies. I thought it was really hilarious that people were putting me up in all these places. I think it's great, but it's sort of silly and I think it's good that I've got this sort of reality side to keep myself grounded.''

He's been off the circuit for the past couple of years since the ``Billy Elliot'' blitz landed him on newspapers and TV talk shows around the world. Rather than jump immediately into another film, Bell returned to England, school and the advice of friends and family to ``experience my childhood a little more.''

``When you've got Hollywood knocking on your door saying, 'Why don't you come experience this?' it does seem enticing,'' says Bell. ``In this industry, people expect you to be a mature person. I was really sort of forced to grow up at 14.''

Well, maybe not entirely ...

``I'm still me,'' he insists. ``I still play at PlayStation. I've still got Eminem on my CD. I still play all the time. I haven't changed a bit.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Isn't he the DICKENS?

Star on the rise Jamie Bell makes the leap from `Billy Elliot' to `Nicholas Nickleby'

(2) no caption (JAMIE BELL)

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(3) Jamie Bell, toting kindling as the hobbled Smike in ``Nicholas Nickleby,'' used his experience in movement and dance to help create his character's physicality.

(4) Bell, with Charlie Hunnam's Nicholas, left, elaborates on his role: ``We realize that Smike's not thick at all. It's just that people don't give him a chance to explain himself.''