10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Billy Elliot

Summary

• Billy Elliot is a 2000 film about a working-class boy who discovers ballet and faces disapproval from his family and community.
• Billy’s character is fictional, but inspired by real-life figures like Sir Thomas Allen, a renowned opera singer who faced struggles in a small mining town.
• Jamie Bell, known for playing Billy Elliot, had prior dance experience and shared a similar background with the character.

A small movie that had a big effect on audiences, the behind-the-scenes details of Billy Elliot make the movie’s success all the more exciting, and it’s so heartwarming that many wonder if Billy Elliot is a true story. The smash-hit 2000 British movie is set in the 1980s during the miners’ strike and follows the titular young boy as he finds a new love for ballet, going against his family’s working-class traditions. It is a movie that has charmed the hearts of audiences while also having bigger influences off-screen in the years following its release.

Though it had a minuscule budget of $5 million, Billy Elliot earned over $100 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). It was also a massive critical success, earning three Academy Award nominations. While its success was unexpected, that is not to say there wasn’t a lot that went into creating this small crowd-pleasing movie. From the origins of the story to the hard work of the actors to the real-life connections, Billy Elliot‘s behind-the-scenes journey is an inspiring one as well.

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Billy Elliot Began As A Play

Screenwriter Lee Hall Drew On His Own Story

The story of Billy Elliot existed before it reached the big screen and became an international hit. The movie is based on the play Dancer by Lee Hall, who would then go on to adapt it into a film himself. Hall admitted that he had no experience or talent for dancing, but drew from his own experiences as an aspiring writer who lived in a similarly working-class area of England where such artistic interests had little encouragement.

In an interview with Theater Talk, Hall revealed that the story originated as an image that popped into his head of a young boy wearing a ballerina’s tutu in a mine. After writing the play, Hall presented it to Stephen Daldry, who was a director at the Royal Court Theatre and they developed it as a movie. Interestingly, the story of Billy Elliot has come full circle as it eventually was made into a stage musical with music from Elton John. Billy Elliot the Musical premiered in March 2005 in London’s West End, at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

Billy Elliot’s Story Is Inspired By Sir Thomas Allen

Allen Helped Define The Character Regardless Of Their Different Dreams

The character of Billy Elliot and his story is entirely fictional, but the movie does draw on some real-life events that might make some viewers suspect that it is based on a true story. Like the 2014 movie Pride, Billy Elliot deals with the real miner’s strike in the UK in the 1980s which affected many small communities across Northern England and Wales. While Billy himself is a fictional character, writer Lee Hall did draw inspiration from one real-life figure.

Billy was partially inspired by Sir Thomas Allen. Interestingly enough, differing from Billy’s story, Allen was not involved in ballet at all. Instead, he is a renowned opera singer who came from a similar background to Billy. Coming from a small mining town as well, it was Allen’s struggles to realize his artistic dreams in a community that did not necessarily encourage such things. Allen went on to attend the Royal College of Music in London and receive high acclaim as an opera singer, leading to his knighthood in 1999 (via iNews).

Jamie Bell Studied Ballet

Bell Experienced Similar Teasing As Billy Did

Billy Elliot was a breakout role for Jamie Bell, who would go on to star in movies like The Adventures on Tintin and Snowpiercer. While casting looked at thousands of young actors for the role, one of the things that gave Bell the advantage was his previous dancing experience. The movie uses tap dancing as well as ballet, two styles that Bell has a passion for.

Bell explained in an interview for the release of the movie that his love of dance began when attending his sister’s dance recitals as a young boy and insisted to his mother that he could do it better. Bell also admitted that, like Billy in the movie, he was faced with ridicule for his desire to dance as it was not seen as something that boys did. He explained (via YouTube):

“It’s quite a hard thing for an 8-year-old to deal with really. But I kind of just… got on with it.”

Jamie Bell Connected To Billy On A Personal Level

Bell Came From A Similar Background

The North East of London is the setting of the movie, specifically the small town of Durham. In Billy Elliot, Durham is comprised of a blue-collar community where many of the people don’t have a choice in their profession as mining is about the only option for the residents who live there. Along with having some dancing experience, Bell also shared similarities with the character of Billy because of this setting.

Bell himself was raised in a very similar area to Durham called Billingham, which was another small working-class town in North East London. Bell also connected to the idea of Billy’s struggle to pursue his artistic desires in a place like this, noting that there were not any acting opportunities where he was from. Like Billy with his ballet, Bell saw this movie as an opportunity to break out of the path of staying and working in Billingham his whole life. He explained in Billy Elliot‘s “making of” featurette (via YouTube):

“Billy thinks if he doesn’t do something that’s going to change his life forever, he’ll go down the pit. He’ll end up like his dad and his brother. So in a way, I thought personally that I’m going to have to do something that’s going to lift me out of here.”

Dame Julie Walters Struggled With The Dancing

Walters Earned An Oscar Nomination For Her Role

One of the standout members of Billy Elliot‘s cast was Mrs. Wilkinson, played by Julie Waters. Wilkinson is the teacher of the local ballet class, a tough woman who does not go easy on her young students. However, she quickly recognizes a talent in Billy and helps him train to get into ballet school. Part of this training involved Wilkinson dancing alongside Billy in several sequences, which make for some of the most fun and heartwarming scenes in the movie.

However, these moments were also very daunting for Waters when taking on the part. Having not been a trained dancer, she was nervous about having to perform, as she had to look like she knew what she was doing in these elaborate dance movie scenes. In the “making of” featurette, she explained:

“I saw the dance they wanted me to do. I felt ill. I said ‘I can’t do that.'”

However, Waters was convincing enough to earn herself an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs. Wilkinson.

Billy Elliot Was Filmed In Easington

A Real Mining Town Was Used

Photo by Charlie Hedley

The location of the film is very authentic, with the story being set in a northern English coal-mining town during the brutal miners’ strike. Billy Elliot is set in a town called Everington, which is a fictional town that is meant to represent a lot of similar places that were in the same position during this period. The film was actually shot in Easington Colliery, a coal mining village in the northeast of England that was hit particularly hard during the miners’ strike.

Sadly, the town has continued to struggle ever since the mines closed. In 2003, the houses and the street that were used in the movie where Billy and his family live were torn down after being determined to be derelict. In the years since filming, the houses began to fall apart and it eventually led to families who had lived there for decades having to leave. The town still held onto the connection to the movie (via BBC):

The closure of the pit 10 years ago led to many people leaving and house prices slumped. It had been hoped that the success of Billy Elliott would help to revive the village, but that has obviously not happened.

Mrs. Wilkinson Was Supposed To Appear At The End

Julie Walters Was Not Available For The Final Sequence

While the entire movie is an emotional and compelling journey, Billy Elliot’s ending leaves audiences speechless with the emotional final scene. Following Billy successfully getting into the ballet school, he bids farewell to his friends and family before starting the next stage in achieving his dreams. The film famously concludes with a time jump, as Billy’s father and brother, along with his childhood friend, come to see an older Billy perform in Swan Lake.

See more : Old Ending Explained, Plot, Cast and Trailer

However, given that it was his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson who taught him about the famous ballet of Swan Lake in the first place,many fans have wondered why she doesn’t appear in this scene as well. While there have been theories that this is meant to suggest that she passed away in the years between the two movies, the unfortunate reality is that Julie Walters simply wasn’t available for filming.

Ballet Dancer Adam Cooper Played Older Billy

Cooper Originated The Swan Lake Role In The Movie

Jamie Bell helped to make the character of Billy Elliot an iconic underdog figure, but he was not the only one to play the role in the movie. The audience watches Billy’s long journey from discovering ballet to finding his passion for it to attempting to pursue it as a future. It is incredibly effective seeing this process through this young boy who is often unsure and not confident in his own skills as a dancer. So it is a bit of a shock for the final scene to show Billy as an adult, having realized those dreams and performing on stage with complete confidence.

Though he has no lines, Billy is played in this final scene by real-life professional dancer, Adam Cooper. Cooper is an accomplished dancer in his own right, and fitting for his role in the movie, he is recognized as creating the role of Swan/Stranger in the reimagined production of Swan Lake. It is this role that Billy is seen playing at the end of the movie.

Stephen Daldry Made His Hectic Directorial Debut

Daldry Dealt With Numerous Production Struggles

Stephen Daldry is a director who has gone on to find a lot of acclaim in movies with him directing both Kate Winslet and Nicole Kidman in Oscar-winning performances in The Reader and The Hours, respectively. However, movie-making was new ground for him to cover when he made his directorial debut with Billy Elliot. While the acclaim the movie received certainly proved he was up to the task, it was not an easy shoot for the new filmmaker.

In an interview with Indiewire, Daldry explained:

“The shooting schedule was a nightmare; we only had seven weeks. Kids can only work nine to five and you can’t work Saturdays. And the kid had to dance the whole time. So it was tight.”

Daldry also had to work with a small budget for the movie as well as the trouble with finding a working mine pit that could be used for certain shots in the movie. However, Daldry pulled off the difficult production while earning a Best Director Oscar nomination for his debut film.

Billy Elliot Has Changed The World Of Ballet

Male Dancers Have Found More Acceptance In This World

Billy Elliot became a little movie that made a big impact when it was released in 2000. Decades later, the movie continues to be an inspiring and influential tale. Along with the hit stage musical adaptation of the movie, the story of Billy Elliot has had an impact on the world of ballet and, specifically, encouraging male dancers to find more opportunities in the art.

In 2020, The New York Times published an article about the way Mattew Bourne’s new take on Swan Lake helped to inspire a generation of male ballet dancers. However, when looking at the ensemble of male dancers who pursued ballet in the last couple of decades, the article mentions the “Billy Elliot effect” as helping to alleviate some of the prejudices toward male ballet dancers and allowing these men to pursue their dreams with a more open-minded acceptance from their communities.

Billy Elliot RDramaMusic

The coming-of-age drama Billy Elliot follows the journey of a young boy who discovers a passion for ballet amidst the coal miner’s strike of the 1980s. Directed by Stephen Daldry and featuring Jamie Bell as the titular Billy, the film explores themes of class, gender, and self-discovery, all set against the backdrop of a working-class community in turmoil.

Director Stephen Daldry Release Date November 10, 2000 Cast Jamie Bell , Julie Walters , Jean Heywood , Jamie Draven , Gary Lewis , Stuart Wells , Mike Elliot , Billy Fane Runtime 110 Minutes

Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment