The past few years have brought a lot success to English actor Charlie Hunnam, who stars in the hit FX series Sons Of Anarchy, which just wrapped its fifth and most successful season on Tuesday night. On top of the hit series, Hunnam has a new film in theatres titled Deadfall, where he stars alongside Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde. Oh, and he also has a major blockbuster coming up as he’ll be starring in Pacific Rim, which will arrive in 2013.
As if that wasn’t enough for the rising star, Collider has revealed that Hunnam will make his directorial debut shortly with a screenplay he wrote and that the film will star his Sons Of Anarchy co-star Tommy Flanagan.
“I’m going to write is this film that I have for Tommy Flanagan that I want to direct for him to star in. We want to go and make that for a million bucks in Britain. Tommy is just amazing. I just think he’s phenomenal. Some of the work he did this season (on Sons of Anarchy) was just breathtaking.”
Hunnam has also revealed he has another four screenplays in development, one of which is about Vlad The Impaler, which Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B bought a few years back. Of the other three, we know that one of them is set up at Warner Bros. and Legendary and is the real life story of a Texan drug dealer.
Hunnam spoke about the project, saying the following:
“It’s the true story of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, all-American Texas player who was dirt poor and grew up in Laredo. At eight or nine years old, he just had a total existential crisis. He looked around and was like, “This is shit! Where’s the intention? Everybody is just a slave to the social and economic demands of their life. Where’s the life here?” He said, “Fuck it! This is not going to be my life.” From eight to 17, he never smoked a cigarette, never drank a beer, never had a cup of coffee, and didn’t even look at a joint. He had total discipline. He wanted to get himself a football scholarship, go to college, use his time at college to get an education, escape poverty and live a meaningful life. He got the football scholarship to an Ivy League school when he was 17.
Ten days after he got the football scholarship, he got into an accident in his car and got charged with criminally negligent homicide because the other person died. He got sent to prison for two years, and he came out at 19 with all of that discipline and passion and hope for his future, and nowhere to put it. He said, “Fuck it! I’m going to start dealing drugs.” By the time he was 27, he was running the third biggest drug cartel in Mexico. It’s a fucking crazy story of the American dream gone wrong and the lengths that people will go to, to feel as though they’ve escaped the drudgery of everyday civilization.”
Hunnam states that he is unsure if he will be starring in the film but with the protagonist being described as “blonde-haired, blue eyed”, it would seem that the actor fits the physical profile. Plus, if Pacific Rim is successful, Warner Bros. and Legendary may realize that Hunnam is the perfect person to lead their next big project.
No details on any of the other projects he has in development have been revealed but as always, we’ll keep you posted on more Charlie Hunnam news as it comes in.
