THE film-makers were looking for a boy who could sing, dance and had the self-assurance to take on a starring role. Enter Jamie Bell, a 13-year-old from Billingham, who told them on his audition tape: "The thing I'm most looking forward to in the future is going out with Britney Spears".

Little did he know what was in store over the next two years - fame, acclaim, awards and a hug from Hollywood star Goldie Hawn as he collected a best actor prize for his performance as ballet dancing miner's son Billy Elliot, in one of the biggest British movies of recent years.

Right now, a date with a pop star isn't out of the question, if only he can stop fellow pupils at Northfield School throwing sweets at him. Jealousy of his success is only one problem Jamie, now 15, has to put up with. Teenage years are difficult enough at the best of times and growing up under the glare of the media compounds the agony.

When Jamie was chosen from 2,000 hopefuls from the North-East to play Billy, director Stephen Daldry gave him a video camera to keep a diary of the shoot. That home movie footage forms the basis of a BBC1 Omnibus documentary telling, in the dramatic words of the press release, "the story of one boy's fairytale rise to stardom and his freefall back to everyday life".

Certainly, this portrait of an artist as a young man is more honest than the usual PR job promoting a performer's career. There's no doubt that Jamie has changed, not just physically, but in his attitude. The self-assurance the film-makers were seeking can come across as arrogance. At one point he is asked by someone off-camera how he thinks he's changed since the success of Billy Elliot. "I'm a dick, arrogant, always wanting his own way," he says.

His single parent mother Eileen chips in that she doesn't think he's arrogant, adding: "I don't like your temper tantrums but I would imagine any teenager has them."

She's spent most of the past two years chaperoning him on the film set and publicity tours. What began as "a whole load of fun" for him has become a serious business.

He was the centre of attention of 150 members of cast and crew on the Billy Elliot set. The producers gave him a computer on the last day of filming and director Daldry gave Eileen, worried about Jamie adjusting to normal life again, a promise that he'd do everything he could to ease the transition.

Trying to be an ordinary schoolboy isn't easy. After all, he's starred in a hit film, rubbed shoulders with Hollywood stars Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts, been chauffeured in stretch limos, attended premieres and parties, and been voted number 11 - between Prince William and Michael Owen - in a national newspaper top tottie chart.

Most of his fellow pupils have been fine. The girls adore him, he's constantly asked for autographs. "There's a bit more staring but otherwise it's A-O-K," says Jamie.

But he has been the recipient of not-very-nice remarks shouted across the playground and had things thrown at him. The aggro is taken seriously enough for a tutor to monitor that area of his school life.

He's also continued to see Daldry, who's become a father figure. Jamie spends much of his spare time at the director's home in Hertfordshire.

"You could tell it was not just a director and star relationship. Stephen had become the dad Jamie had always been looking for," says Eileen. "Spending more time in London with Stephen is not an issue with me."

Daldry gave Jamie a jeep used in Saving Private Ryan for his birthday and has been teaching him to drive. They go out shooting in the countryside.

"Because of the age Jamie was when he made the film, you have to get into a parental role anyway," he says. "So it's whether you pursue that parental role or not, and I have loved it. Playing the role of a dad is a hugely enjoyable one to play."

It could have been so different, as another local teenager Lee Darville knows. The documentary reveals the choice to play Billy came down to him and Jamie. After six weeks working with a choreographer, he was rejected as his dancing wasn't good enough.

He accepted a smaller role, as a slow boy in Billy's class - only for the scene to be cut from the final film. Daldry regrets that happened as Lee "was really rather brilliant in it".

Lee himself, obviously disappointed not to have won the star part, seems to bear no grudges, saying: "I think I know deep down Jamie deserved the part".

For the time being, Jamie has stopped being an ordinary schoolboy again. He has just started shooting his second movie, an as-yet untitled supernatural action movie set in the First World War trenches, on location in Prague. The part of young soldier Charlie Shakespeare is one that Jamie hopes will stop people referring to him as the boy from Billy Elliot.

* Omnibus: The Billy Elliot Story is on BBC1 on Tuesday at 10.35pm.

Published: Friday, November 2, 2001