Jamie Bell met notorious former neo-Nazi on the day of Charlottesville rally tragedy

Actor Jamie Bell had a strange first meeting with reformed neo-Nazi leader Byron Widner, as he prepared to portray him, because it took place on the same day a white supremacist drove into a crowd of anti-racism protesters.

Bell was already nervous about coming face to face with one of America’s most violent men when 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., mowed down activists in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer.

“The first time I spoke to Bryon was the day the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville took place, which was extremely odd,” Bell tells WENN. “He was very shaken by those events because Daryle Jenkins, the activist who had helped him escape the hate group, was in Virginia and Bryon hadn’t heard from him, so he was quite concerned for his well-being.

“Thankfully Daryle was fine in the end, but seeing how worried Bryon was about his missing friend made me feel like he might actually be a good guy.”

Bell spent a week with the once-heavily tattooed Vinlanders Social Club founder and admits hearing his story was “difficult at times”.

“Some things he was willing to talk about in great detail; other things he wasn’t,” Jamie explains. “I felt the need to literally see his skin for myself. I had to look at his hands and face to see if there was any ink left there.

“If you didn’t know that this man had been through two years of surgery to remove his tattoos, you’d never believe that he had them in the first place. It was a remarkable thing.”

Widner, who now lives in witness protection, had all his hate-themed tattoos removed from his face. The painful process was documented in the film Erasing Hate.

Bell portrays the former neo-Nazi in Guy Nattiv’s new film Skin.

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