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Jamie Lee-Hill is an actor know for playing a wide range of characters, and being able to perform with emotional intensity or vulnerability.
Lee-Hill was born Jamie Lee Hill (Lee being his middle name) in Dorchester on 30 March 1972 to father Geoffrey Hill, an electrician and photographer, and mother Mirveen Hill (née Grainger) a nurse. The third of four sons, he grew up in the Dorset villages of Corfe Mullen, Child Okeford, and Shroton, and then moved to the area where his parents honeymooned, the tiny village of Rhydymain in Gwynedd, North Wales. The family lived in caravans on site whilst Geoffrey self-built the family houses in Shroton and Rhydymain. Jamie learnt Welsh and encountered his first experienced of drama in the small Snowdonia village. His acting career had an unpromising start when he was playing an angel in a nativity play. Spotting his mother in the audience, he slipped out of character and called out "Hello Mum" instead of focusing on the baby Jesus.
Jamie enjoyed watching his father perform at Dolgellau Amateur Dramatics Society (DADS) and remembers a local production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin in which he was disappointed at not being one of the lucky children brought up on stage from the audience to enter a magical world. Not deterred, he would persuade his younger brother to join him and put on shows to his parents based upon the fairy tales he would read.
In 1982 the family moved across the border to Chester. The only brush he had with a professional production as a child was at an open audition at The Gateway Theatre in Chester for Jungle Book. Unfortunately, his younger brother insisted on coming and made him late. Denied the chance to audition, Jamie was certain that his commitment would make him the most convincing monkey ever, but the producers would not relent at his persistence, taking his number, and saying they would get back to him. He is still waiting for the call and has never been late for an audition since.
The light bulb moment when Jamie fell in love with acting happened in an English lesson at Queens Park High School, Chester. The teacher casually distributed texts of a play to some of the pupils. One hit his desk, and immediately on being asked to read the part of a hooligan, an unquenchable fire was lit. The shy boy found great freedom in playing someone completely different without suffering any of the consequences. He still feels a thrill and tingle of excitement every time he begins reading a new script.
At high school Jamie had a small role in The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, and then got the lead role of Ernie in Ernie and His Incredible Hallucinations. There was a televised version at the time, and Jame first set his sights on being a television actor when he believed he could have played the part much better. A teachers' strike resulted in the play being cancelled and that was the limit of his acting experience at school With no G.C.S.E. drama course, or any advice on a career path in this field, no path to acting opened up at that time in his life.
Jamie's parents moved to Bournemouth when he was fifteen. Jamie hated Winton boys' school, so after less than two weeks, left his parents and moved back to Chester staying with some family friends to finish his schooling at Queens Park High, before eventually moving back to Bournemouth in 1988.
Jamie joined a small local drama group, St. Lukes players, which has since been disbanded. The older ladies in particular drilled the development of character into the performers, and three of the young intake went on to become professional actors, including Jamie. Not bad for a small church hall group that would perform to tiny audiences of fewer than a hundred people. He also went on to perform at All Saints Dramatic Society in many plays, musicals and pantomimes.
Settling down at a relatively young age, Jamie married and has a son, Elliott Hill. Jamie worked in insurance and construction, obtaining an upper second class honours degree in Quantity Surveying. He maintained steady jobs to maintain the financial security of his family, but Jamie's burning ambition to be an actor refused to go away. This desire was fueled by his television debut, a one off professional performance, when he worked with John Sessions for a week playing the poet William Wordsworth in Splendour in the Grass. This was aired by HTV at prime time on a Sunday evening in 1998.
After separating from his wife in 2009, Jamie decided that it was the time to pursue his life long ambition. He had to overcome barriers; a director refused to audition him because he was untrained, but Jamie persuaded her she had nothing to lose by auditioning him. Jamie then landed the role despite her initial prejudice and the competition. This gave him encouragement and brought him repeat work in professional fringe theatre around the Bournemouth area.
Jamie made a swift transition from theatre to film, adoring the intimacy of acting up close to the camera. He first gained experience in local student film productions, and was then cast by Suki Singh in his first feature film, working alongside Sam Heughan and Claudia Bassols in Emulsion.
Jamie was cast by Dramatic Productions as Steve Hubble in A Streetcar Named Desire which was staged at Poole Lighthouse. This lead on to him being taken on to their agency books which gave him the opportunity to audition for Far From the Madding Crowd. He received the audition request whilst holidaying in his old home village of Rhydymain, so he got his son to tape his audition as a shepherd whilst in a field surrounded by sheep. Thomas Vinterberg, known for the Oscar nominated film The Hunt, saw the tape and hand picked him for the supporting role of Laban Tall.
Jamie was thrilled to work for such a wonderful director alongside Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen, Matthias Schoennearts, and Tom Sturridge, the latter of whom he has worked with since together with Benedict Cumberbatch in The Hollow Crown.
Always keen to master his craft, and a great admirer of Stanislavski, Jamie even made the pilgrimage to his Moscow home. Jamie has also extended his skills by training late in life with Dorset School of Acting, and has particularly found the work around imagination and breaking down of texts to have been helpful in improving his performances.
Jamie has gone on to work on several other films. He signed with DQ Manament in 2015 and his burning ambition remains as undiminished as ever.
