Charlie Hunnam's Full Circle Moment

ODE

Charlie Hunnam speaks to Melissa Nathoo about portraying Ed Gein in Ryan Murphy's new Monster series, and how it became a full-circle moment. Report by Nathoom. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00I don't quite know what to do with that, Ryan.

00:02Somehow my dreams came true.

00:04It's not like I was walking around thinking, like,

00:07thoughts of a serial killer.

00:08He makes me laugh all day long.

00:10Charlie, always good to see you.

00:13Good to see you, too. How are you?

00:14I'm very well.

00:15You know what, every time I've interviewed you,

00:17I always get good guy vibes off you.

00:20And I do wonder how flattering or not it is for you

00:24when they come to you with a role like this,

00:26and they're like, we think you'd play a great serial killer.

00:30We, you know, you kind of look like him.

00:32Like, what's that like?

00:34It's funny.

00:35I was doing an interview the other day with Ryan Murphy,

00:37who's the creator of the show, and offered me this job.

00:40And somebody, he'd never told me this,

00:42but somebody asked me, asked him why he wanted me to play the role.

00:47And he said, just as he was starting to write this

00:49and do all of his research about Ed Gein,

00:51he'd seen a paparazzi picture of me where I just looked.

00:55He said, I just thought he looked haunted.

00:57And there was something about it where I looked at him

01:00and I thought of Ed Gein.

01:01And I said, I don't quite know what to do with that, Ryan.

01:04But yeah, I was really, I was really surprised.

01:07But honestly, the quality of this franchise of Monsters is so high.

01:14And Evan Peters, who played Dharma, I thought was so spectacularly brilliant

01:19that I just really felt flattered to be invited to be part of this franchise

01:23that was already so well established and had been so well received by the world.

01:27I have to say, though, I was quite surprised to hear the voice of Ed when I watched it.

01:34Was there anything about him that surprised you that you maybe weren't expecting

01:38like when you were learning about him?

01:39Yeah, I mean, listen, I have to be careful how I talk about this.

01:44Because as an actor, my job is definitely not, is specifically never to have any judgment

01:50about the character.

01:51I just have to understand him.

01:53And I don't want to be too empathetic and let him off the hook because he did terrible things.

01:58But what constantly I found in the research was just how sympathetic I felt to him

02:06in his early years before he started committing crimes.

02:09Because he was like, lived in total isolation.

02:13His only friend, his only relationship, his whole life was with his mother.

02:16And she told him every day that she hated him because he wasn't born the daughter that she'd wanted.

02:22And so in his first, so she died when he was 41.

02:27And then he lived in complete isolation, utterly alone, having no contact with the world for two years.

02:34And he was so lonely that at 43, the first crime he ever committed was going to the graveyard

02:40to dig his mom up to bring her home.

02:43And you start to hear details like that and you think, like, just this, you know,

02:48that you can't help but feel a bit heartbroken for this, for this man.

02:52But then, of course, it's complicated because then he did these horrendous crimes.

02:57But just in question, your question about the voice, that grew out of feeling as though his mother

03:04was the only person he ever knew, all he wanted was her love and acceptance.

03:09So how would that have impacted him, like him being told every day that she hated him

03:14because he wasn't a girl?

03:16And so that's sort of where the voice grew out of.

03:18I've heard you speaking a lot about like, you know, when you finished it,

03:22bringing yourself out of like, you know, being in this dark place and going to the grave and everything,

03:27saying your goodbyes.

03:28But during filming, do you like to stay in that quite a dark place when you're doing this?

03:34Or do you try and find lighter moments and like bring yourself out of it?

03:39Liz, I was working with one of my best friends and my favorite human beings in the world,

03:43Max Winkler, who directed this, six of these episodes.

03:47And we, he makes me laugh all day long.

03:50And so we definitely found some levity, but I stayed in it as much as it requires an enormous

03:57amount of focus to be somebody that's so different from myself.

04:02Yeah.

04:02And I was working all the time.

04:04I mean, I would work 14, 15 hours a day on set, and then I'd go home and have three hours

04:08of homework to do.

04:09So I stayed in it as much as like, you have to stay in something like this just to remain

04:16focused and it clear in your mind.

04:18But it's not like I was walking around thinking like thoughts of a serial killer,

04:22because that's not good for anyone.

04:25Thank God.

04:26And listen, you know, I'm over here in the UK, so I've known since the Biker Grove days

04:33and then, you know, Queer as Folk.

04:35And like to see you going on, and obviously Sons of Anarchy made you such a big name in

04:40the US.

04:41Like, do you take time to reflect on just how far you've come?

04:45It was an interesting thing.

04:46Like I, when I came to America for the first time, the first time I ever went to America

04:52was to New York, and I was with a friend of mine who has worked in the costume department

04:57on Queer as Folk.

04:59And we just finished doing Queer as Folk and we said, let's go on like a trip to New York.

05:02And one of the things she'd really wanted to do was go for brunch at the plaza, because

05:08she thought that would be like impossibly like elegant and like an exciting, like luxurious,

05:13chic thing to do.

05:14And I remember like feeling like so outside, like so that I didn't belong to this world.

05:20I'm like a, you know, working class kid from Newcastle having brunch at the plaza and then

05:25cut to 27 years later, our after party for the premiere of this was at the plaza and I

05:31was kind of like the main attraction.

05:33So, yeah, I mean, I definitely look back and think like with an enormous amount of gratitude

05:39and can't quite believe that somehow my dreams came true.

05:43Aw, you know what?

05:44We're really happy for you, Charlie.

05:45It's always lovely to see you shine.

05:48You are in the good ones, so.

05:49Oh, I appreciate that.

05:52Good luck with this.

05:53Good luck with everything else.

05:54And hopefully we'll see you in person again very soon.

05:57All right.

05:57Thanks.

05:58Great to see you.

05:58Thanks, Charlie.

05:59Bye-bye.

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