Charlie Hunnam on His Calvin Klein Campaign, Leaving Sons of Anarchy, and His Next Not-So-Big Role

charlie-hunnam-reveal-calvin-klein-main Last year, Charlie Hunnam was known for two reasons: playing sensitive bad boy Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy, and being cast as America’s Sexiest Sadist, Christian Grey, before bowing out and ceding the role to our February cover boy Jamie Dornan. Today? Hunnam’s in a lull before a handful of high-profile film projects, and found the time to smolder alongside Dutch supermodel Doutzen Kroes in the campaign for Calvin Klein’s newest fragrance, Reveal.

Just after the brand’s fall 2015 menswear show in Milan, Hunnam hopped on the phone to talk Fashion Week, modeling pitfalls, and stealing from his dad’s cologne collection.

DETAILS: Someone recently posted a photo of the back of your head, front row at the Calvin Klein show. Is this your first time in Milan for Fashion Week?
Charlie Hunnam:
No I’ve been over here once before, probably ten years ago, when I did a little campaign for Emporio Armani. I barely remembered how the whole thing works, you know? I forgot how quick the fashion shows were. It was four or five minutes. That’s a tremendous amount of work for such a brief period of time.

DETAILS: Are you seeing anything else over there?
Charlie Hunnam:
No, just Calvin. I don’t have any interest in anything else [laughs].

DETAILS: You mentioned a stint with Armani—do you have a history modeling?
Charlie Hunnam:
When I was a kid, probably 16 or 17, I got spotted by a model scout that wanted to represent me, and they sent me one modeling job, for Wall’s ice cream. I did one job for them, and then a catwalk shoot for Kangol caps, and decided modeling was not for me. They had an acting division as part of this agency as well, and I said, “Well, I don’t want to model, but if you want to send me on some auditions, I’m in film school, I want to be an actor, so if you want to represent me, that would be great.” And they, eh, weren’t really interested, and I just badgered and badgered and badgered them and they finally sent me out. I ended up getting the first job that they sent me out on.

DETAILS: And now you’re back at it with the Calvin Klein Reveal campaign.
Charlie Hunnam:
I was super flattered and excited about the prospect of working with Calvin Klein, and doing a Calvin Klein fragrance specifically, because I always really liked what they did. Back when I was a kid I used to tear pages out of magazines and stick them on my bedroom wall—I had the Eternity ads on my wall and the CK One ads. My whole childhood, those were on my wall, and cut to 20 years later, being asked to be the face of one of Calvin Klein’s new fragrance is kind of surreal.

DETAILS: Did you retain any of your modeling chops?
Charlie Hunnam:
It was humbling. You have all these tools at your disposal as an actor, you know? Movement and dialogue and all this stuff, and tools to invoke the thing you’re trying put across. When we did the TV spot I found it easy and really fun, but actual stills I found difficult. Working with Doutzen particularly, who’s an absolute master of the still, it was very queer to me that I was the rookie of the equation. I just watched her a lot and tried to replicate what she was doing. I was sort of panicked that day. I felt like I was maybe in over my head a little bit.

DETAILS: Did Doutzen offer you any tips?
Charlie Hunnam:
She’s so sweet I don’t think she would presume to do that, you know? But I think probably without even knowing, she was immensely helpful, just in doing her thing, I feel like I learned a great deal. She’s a badass for sure, she’s awesome. Everyone had told me how great she was, and I was like ‘Ah well, we’ll see,’ sort of took it at face value, but then when I met her I was like ‘Whoa, she really is great, I see what everyone was talking about,’ like really, really smart and funny, kind of sassy, just a really cool chick.

DETAILS: Did you get to hang out during down time between shots?
Charlie Hunnam:
No, there really wasn’t any. Marcus [Piggott, who forms a photographic duo with Mert Alas] shoots so fast, it was crazy. That’s what I learned—the fashion industry is way better, you don’t have to work nearly as hard as you do in the film industry if you’re the talent. I work 16, 17, 18 hours a day on set, and I think we were working like six hour days on this, so it’s a pretty cushy gig. Show up, look pretty for six hours, go home.

Charlie Answers GQ Spain’s Questionnaire

charlie_hunnam_hombre_gq_de_la_semana_2050_645x This was translated by Google, so forgive any grammatical errors.
There are actors who go to history for playing big roles and others that make it by rejecting them. This is the risk that ran Charlie Hunnam (Newcastle, 1980) a year ago when he decided to get off the train of ’50 shades of Grey’. Scandal in social networks that caused that the protagonist of ‘Sons Of Anarchy’ Park the bike and the lollipop leather donning a suit not sat very well to fans of the erotic saga. This should add Hunnam agenda problems which made impossible his participation in the movie most anticipated at the beginning of 2015.

But that doesn’t mean that the British actor good shot. In fact, while discussed the success and impact which will have the film, Hunnam has portfolio that promises to be one of the sagas that more might be talking about in the next years. In 2016 will get into the role of King Arthur in the hands of Guy Ritchie: “We will see if I have just one mega star media,” confessed us during the interview we had with him in Milan at the presentation of the Reveal Men’s Calvin Klein fragrance, which is a image. “We are excited about this project. In fact, for me it is very important, since ‘Excalibur’ from John Boorman was one of the films that made that today I devoted to the cinema, so I feel very attached to this story”.

What is clear is that, by Ritchie, will not be an Arturo to use: “In the first film delving on who was Arthur before being King”. In addition, he also thinks add a dot of heterodoxy to the equation: “what interests me is telling stories and exploring the human condition. The most complicated and complex characters are more interesting.” This speech is the choice of pieces that make up your resume: ‘Pacific Rim’, ‘Queer As Folk’ ‘Sons Of Anarchy’ or ‘Green Street’, all away from the comfort zone.

Project that made that GQ Spain saw the faces with him was another of those challenges that both arouse him: “I’m used to the camera and not so much to the still photo,” said. “I build characters with movement and text, but here I could not do it and I felt more tense than usual. I had to leave everything what they had learned during the past 15 years and make a re-composition of the situation. In addition, my side was Doutzen Kroes , that is extraordinary in front of the camera. She arrived, posing and it had already built. I, on the other hand, I felt more insecure and always asked if we could go back to repeat.” Insecurity or not, the thing went well. In fact, satisfied was the actor with the result that now wants more: “it was a challenge and I both loved the experience I have now hungry for more projects like this”.

While exploring this new territory of his career, Hunnam begins to give shape to his most personal project: ‘ American Drug Lord’, a film where, in addition to playing the main character, Barbie, one of the major traffickers in Mexico, serves as producer along with Brad Pitt: “when I tell the history of Barbie in an article, took it to the producer of Brad. “Our plan was to keep it secret, but they caught the paparazzi leaving the building, and from there it was impossible to contain the news, so everything has developed faster than intended”.

Anyway, that will be in 2017. Meanwhile, the future King Arthur has time to respond to our questionnaire of GQ man of the week:

1. essential in your closet
Jeans, shirts and slippers.

2. a complement
All my jewelry that I’ve been given, a watch my father gave to me and rings that my girl made. One of them was my father’s.

3. do you follow any routine image?
What you need for each job.

4. a reference style
I don’t have one.

5. your female icon
Cate Blanchett, find her extraordinary. Continue reading Charlie Answers GQ Spain’s Questionnaire

Calvin Klein Fashion Show & Post Show Dinner – Additions

I’ve added over 40 photos of Charlie from the Calvin Klein Fashion Show and the post-show dinner which both took place on January 18th in Milan, Italy. You can check those out in the gallery below: