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ShockYa: So Jordan was just telling me that this movie is the most pirated on the web this week. What do you make of that?

Charlie Hunnam: It’s just one of these unfortunate realities of this technological revolution. It’s easier to make films like this and get them out into the marketplace, for people to see them. We don’t have to have a huge distribution deal and 1,000 screens to get it out there, but the flipside of that is that it’s much easier to then go and pirate that material and send it out into the world. You know, of course, not being the financier, my feeling is that I really wish people wouldn’t pirate, because it makes it more difficult to make films… but there’s still a certain satisfaction that people are going out and seeking out the material, seeking out the thing we made. It’s a tricky thing.

ShockYa: Did you ever download illegal music via Napster or anything when you were younger?

CH: No, I really didn’t — partly because I’m not really technologically savvy, and partly because I grew up in a very backwards place, an economically and socially depressed area that was definitely 10 years behind the rest of the south of England, Newcastle Upon Tyne. I actually didn’t even really have access to a computer until I was 18 or so. I’d never sent an email or anything like that. You know, if you grew up in Los Angeles at the same age as me you would have had a computer at age 12, but it just wasn’t a reality for me. And so by the time I got connected, I was already working in this business and wouldn’t and couldn’t justify stealing the product that I was participating in making, you know? Sometimes a friend of mine and I will be talking about a new band and they’ll be like, “Will you burn that for me?” And I’ll be like, “Yeah, yeah,” but then I’ll be like, “I’d actually rather just give you the money and let you go buy it.” I actually really enjoy corporate theft — I’m not a guy who particularly has a weak stomach when it comes to crime. I have a lot of friends who are criminals – just, like, actively, everyday gangsters, and I have no problem with that whatsoever. A friend of mine robbed 32 banks and ended up [getting] caught, did his time, and is out now, and that’s behind him. But he targeted institutions that he didn’t think were righteous — big banks that are not being very nice to their customers. He was a righteous gangster. And his story I just find absolutely marvelous. But it seems like stealing from artists, knowing what it is to be a struggling artist, doesn’t seem that cool to me. Hurting the individual I really disdain; hurting big corporate America I kind of absolutely admire.

ShockYa: You’re a younger brother in real life, right? Did any of your experiences jibe with Frank’s in the movie?

CH: Yes, I’d completely forgotten about that. I definitely do feel some similarities, though. I [told Jordan my brother is] one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met — the kind of guy, at least when we were growing up together, where you’d go out on a night of drinking and you might end up on a stolen boat in the North Sea, because at some point in the night he might say, “Yo, let’s go sailing!” And this is that type of guy — totally dominated by brother. As I was. Now I have two younger brothers too, because I’m in the middle, and so for a period of time I dominated them too, because that’s how it works with brothers — you just pay it forward.