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Bell was born in Stockton on Tees, England, where he grew up with his mother and older sister. His father left after his birth. Bell was a pupil at Northfield School, then the Stagecoach Theatre Arts school. He was a member of the National Youth Music Theatre. In 1999, he was chosen from a field of over 2000 boys for the role of Billy Elliot, an 11-year-old boy who dismays his working-class widowed father and older brother by taking up ballet.

Bell acted as Honorary Jury President of the 2001 Giffoni Film Festival. Since his film debut in Billy Elliot, he has appeared as the crippled servant Smike in an adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, a young soldier in Deathwatch, a teenager on the run in Undertow, a gun-toting pacifist in Dear Wendy, and a disaffected Southern California teenager in The Chumscrubber. He played a young Jimmy in the 2005 version of [King Kong]]. In 2007, he played the title character in Hallam Foe - for which he was nominated for the best actor award at the British Independent Film Awards - and appeared as himself in lonelygirl15 spin-off KateModern.

He has roles in two 2008 films: the sci-fi movie Jumper and the World War II drama Defiance. Despite rumours to the contrary, he will not be appearing in Thea Sharrock's West End production of Equus, having withdrawn from negotiations when he was not offered the contract for the play's Broadway run.

In 2005 and 2006, Bell dated actress Evan Rachel Wood, with whom he appeared in the music video for Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends".

He currently lives in New York, and also owns a home in Chelsea, London.

• Billy Elliot as Billy Elliot 2000
• Close And True as Mark Sheedy 2000
• Deathwatch as Pfc Charlie Shakespeare 2002
• Nicholas Nickleby as Smike 2002
• Undertow as Chris Munn. 2004
• Dear Wendy as Dick Dandelion 2005
• The Chumscrubber as Dean Stiffle 2005
• King Kong as Jimmy 2005