My dad was one of the toughest dudes I ever met
...I’ve played him a lot in my career
junior, 39, had little time to prepare for the loss of their dad.
Sylvia said: “He was so ill he could hardly walk but was so determined to go home he’d pull out the needles.”
Charlie was two when his mum Jane split from his dad. She remarried and moved to Cumbria when Charlie was 12. He went to school in Penrith.
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 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 amazed I’d been given this opportunity. I jumped in head first.”
At 19, he moved to the US and won a role in biker drama Sons of Anarchy.
He used his dad as inspiration for his role as Jackson “Jax” Teller. Over the past six years, he has had lead roles in The Ledge with Liv Tyler in 2011, the 2013 sci-fi film Pacific Rim and The Lost City of Z.
Now in a relationship with jewellery designer Morgana McNelis, his love life hasn’t always run smoothly.
Charlie, who was linked to model Sophie Dahl, said endured “three horrible, tumultuous years” after marrying US actress Katharine Towne in a 2am ceremony in Las Vegas.
He was 18 and they had known each other for three weeks.
Charlie beefed up for his role in King Arthur, which also features David Beckham in a cameo role.
To land the part, Charlie 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.”
He added: “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 Friday.