SONS OF ANARCHY Charlie Hunnam: Emmys?

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Charlie Hunnam, Jax in FX’s Sons of Anarchy, is going to take an award show by storm. He’ll do it in his time and on his terms, though. The Emmys can come to him.

Or, as he put it in a recent interview, “Fuck the Emmys.”

The SAMCRO Vice President says this with more than the confidence of youth on his side. He has a sterling silver filmography – a chain of high-value supporting parts in award-rich films.

The odds that such roles will keep coming when you look close enough to detect a trend. Hunnam plays characters that step from the shadows to steal the spotlight: Subtle psychos, sociopaths, suicides – Charlie may strike audiences as standard-issue Hollywood handsome at first glance, but by a couple scenes in, he’s channeling low-volume, high-voltage crazy.

Trace that lineage through his film credits and you figure an award statue is only a matter of time. Cold Mountain really catapulted Hunnam center stage for critical praise. Yes, he’d headlined as Nicholas Nickleby before and backed up Katie Holmes in Abandon, but his disturbing performance as a somersaulting albino sadist was the first role surrounded by accolades.

http://youtu.be/YIzeMI8Uxjo

From there, Hunnam nailed a succession of sketchy roles in critically embraced cinema – Green Street Hooligans and Children of Men. It was shortly after this pair of outlaw parts that he saddled up as the crown prince of Charming, California. Sons of Anarchy has sent Hunnam’s career cruising for two certain fates, syndication and gold statues.

He’s yet to arrive. That’s the flip side of the trend – for all the awards that orbit him, none have fallen his way. The flicks garner the gold, Hunnam is a highlight in them, but never do the two spotlights meet.

Hunnam has full confidence they will, though, and so finds no reason to pursue them – or money – full throttle. An interview prior to this recent one indicates he’s selective.

“I have 60 years to make the money, but the choices I make in the next five years are really going to define my career.”

Looking at the lean, mean résumé above, it shows.

So for now, Charlie Hunnam is enjoying the journey to stardom much like Jax would a run from Charming to LA, down along Pacific Coast Highway: Taking the corners smooth and the straightaways steady, letting it be about the ride, not where it’s taking him.

There’s an exciting destination ahead, though. Guillermo del Toro is bringing giant-robot, colossal-monster combat to the live action screen again with Pacific Rim, due out in 2013. It’s a post-apocalyptic devotion to Japanese epics like Neon Genesis Evangelion, featuring a not-too-distant future where humanity – Charlie Hunnam, specifically – pilots arcane robots to battle titanic monsters.

One Comment

1. 

   Lrae112864

   June 2, 2012 at 10:22 pm

    Wonder if I am the only one who caught the reference about the confidence of youth!  I remember that line from Cold Mountain!   Loved it!

   Reply