Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
My dad was one of the toughest dudes I ever met ...I’ve played him a lot in my career
STAR CHARLIE ON HERO BEHIND ARTHUR
Charlie Hunnam is the Geordie set to be crowned Hollywood’s hottest hardman after beefing up to star in the title role in Guy Ritchie’s movie, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. And as he looked for inspiration to play the legendary fighter and leader, Charlie drew on memories of his late “gangster” dad, Billy, just as he has for all his tough-guy roles. From playing a rough biker in TV drama Sons of Anarchy, to the steely adventurer Colonel Percival Fawcett in the movie The Lost City of Z, Charlie has always drawn on the menace of his fearless father. The 37-year-old actor said: “My dad was the toughest, most savage dude I’ve ever met. I feel like I’ve been playing him a lot in my career.” His step-mum Sylvia Hunnam has told the Mirror how losing the dad he idolised to cancer left Charlie devastated. She says: “Charlie had Billy on a pedestal. Perhaps as a young man you like a father figure to be a strong person and Charlie saw him as that – a man who could look after everyone and just sort things. “Charlie was devastated when we lost him so suddenly in 2013.” The actor dashed back to the UK from his home in LA when he got the news that Billy had cancer. Sylvia, 61, who lives in Wall, Northumberland, says: “It was a shock for Charlie to see how ill Billy had become in such a short space of time, how much weight he had lost and how frail he’d become. “I didn’t think anything was going to save him but when the end came it was an awful shock for me. But Charlie was devastated. He came back and within two weeks his dad was gone, it was so fast. “I’m so glad they saw each other before he died though.”
Billy died, aged 61, on May 3, 2013, and his funeral was on May 10 – the day after Charlie’s 33rd birthday – in his home city of Newcastle. Billy was well known as a hardman on Tyneside, where he worked as a scrap metal merchant. Charlie has described him as having a “gangster vibe” and was even in discussions to make a film about his tough youth. Sylvia, who was married to Billy for 27 years, says: “I’ve seen him described as a gangster since his death and I think he’d have liked that. He had the look, the diamond ring on his little finger, the Rolex, the Rolls-royce.” Billy was born in Byker, Newcastle, left school with no qualifications, and worked as a nightclub doorman and on the docks before he started his scrap business. Sylvia says: “Billy was a big man who fought for everything he had. But at home, around me and the boys, he was a perfect gentleman. “He loved me and he loved his boys, and they really loved him.” Charlie and his brother, Billy, 39, had little time to prepare for the loss of their dad. Sylvia says: “He was so ill he could hardly walk but was so determined to go home he would pull out the needles in his arms.” Charlie was
two when his mum Jane split from his dad. She remarried and moved from Newcastle to Cumbria when Charlie was 12. He went to Ullswater Community College and once described the area as “just about the worst place you could hope to live”. He said: “They hated me from the second I got there.” To protect himself he took up martial arts. He said: “I started channelling my father.” In his mid-teens he was in a shop in Newcastle when he blew a cheeky kiss to a producer for Byker Grove and landed himself a small part in the BBC series. In 1999, he won the role of Nathan Maloney, the 15-year-old boy coming out of the closet in Queer as Folk. Charlie didn’t care that it involved sex scenes which shocked the nation. He said: “I was a pretty fearless kid. I was just amazed I’d been given this opportunity. I jumped in head first.” At 19, he moved to the US and finally got his big break in Sons of Anarchy, a TV drama about a biker gang. He used his dad as inspiration for his role as Jackson “Jax” Teller. Over the past six years, his career has taken off, with lead roles in The Ledge with Liv Tyler in 2011, the 2013 sci-fi film Pacific Rim and this year’s explorer film, The Lost City of Z.
Though now in a steady relationship with girlfriend of 11 years, jewellery designer Morgana Mcnelis, his love life hasn’t always run smoothly. Charlie, who was linked to model Sophie Dahl, says he endured “three horrible, tumultuous years” after marrying American actress Katharine Towne in a 2am ceremony in Las Vegas. He was 18 and they had known each other for three weeks. But Sylvia, who married Billy in 1986 just three months after they had met, says Charlie was once again following his dad’s lead. She says: “They ‘Did a Billy and Sylvia’. Their marriage didn’t last but ours was always going to.” Charlie beefed up for his role in King Arthur, which also features David Beckham in a cameo role. To land the part, Charlie jokingly challenged all the other hopefuls to a fight. That pluck appealed to Ritchie, famous for gangster films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. But, once again, Charlie was drawing on his youth in Newcastle. He said: “I spent most of my childhood messing around with swords and pretending to be either a knight or a wizard. “I had a lot of practice pretending to play King Arthur before actually being hired to do it professionally.” King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is in cinemas from May 19.
I spent most of my childhood messing about with swords CHARLIE HUNNAM ON HIS ROLE IN KING ARTHUR