A true rebel without a cause

“I think honestly a big part of it was that it was something to do,” Hannah Bailey says.

“My friends and I were sitting at Taco Bell and we were bored. It was like, ‘Oh, those auditions are today, you want to go?’ ”

She decided to, which was how this young woman from tiny Warsaw, Ind., ended up in a tony hotel off Manhattan’s Columbus Circle, squeezing in an interview after an appearance on NBC’s “Today Show.”

Bailey was one of a handful of high school seniors in Warsaw who were followed by the roving camera of Nanette Burstein for the new documentary “American Teen.”

It shows high school from the perspective of a popular girl, a jock, a nerd and an artsy rebel.

Bailey, awaiting her sophomore year in college, was pegged as the rebel.

“It’s not such a bad thing to be a little different, but I didn’t think I was that artsy,” she says.

“I had a lot of friends who were way more into art than I was, or rebellious. I wasn’t trying to like stick it to the man, I was just depressed.”

Despite her discomfort with being labeled, Bailey says she’s very happy with “American Teen.”

Then again, she’s seen it more than enough times – “like 20 times, too many” – while doing promotion.

”I don’t really watch it, to be honest. I get a little uncomfortable,” she says. “I like seeing myself interact with my friends, but I don’t like the way I talk.”

Burstein filmed Bailey and her classmates for 10 months, eight months without interruption.

“If we said we didn’t want to be filmed today she didn’t push it. She was extremely respectful,” Bailey says.

The biggest challenge for Burstein was just living in Warsaw.

“I remember talking to her about the food choices,” Bailey says. “She’s from New York City and you can’t beat that.

“We’ve got Applebee’s, that’s the fanciest restaurant we’ve got. I don’t think she liked it that much.”

Bailey didn’t much like high school, as evidenced in the film.

We see her boyfriend break up with her, which left her so depressed that she missed several weeks of school. Later another boyfriend did the same.

”I realize now growing up that I was extremely self-indulgent, as most high school kids are,” she says. “Your boyfriend breaking up with you is not the end of the world.

“But that’s high school; you think it’s the worst moment of your life. Which it might have been.”

Bailey is enjoying college life at New York’s Purchase College, studying film editing. She doesn’t want to see herself on screen anymore.

“I’ve had my fill,” she says. “I want to be behind the camera now.”

The birthday bunch

Singer Frankie Ford is 69. Actress Tina Cole (“My Three Sons”) is 65. Actor-comedian Richard Belzer (“Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Homicide”) is 64. Actor Billy Bob Thornton is 53. Actress Lauren Tom (“Joy Luck Club,” “Men In Trees”) is 49. Producer Michael Gelman (“Live with Regis and Kelly”) is 47. Actor Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost”) is 40. Actor Andy Hallett (“Angel”) is 33. Actors Dylan and Cole Sprouse (“The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”) are 16.