Collider.com — The crime thriller Deadfall tells the story of siblings Addison (Eric Bana) and Liza (Olivia Wilde), who get in a car accident after a casino heist gone wrong and decide to split up to make a run for the Canadian border during a Thanksgiving blizzard. While Addison is creating mayhem, Liza is picked up by ex-boxer Jay (Charlie Hunnam), who’s looking to make amends with his parents over a dinner that will push the bonds of family to the limit.
At the film’s press day, actor Charlie Hunnam spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about what attracted him to this film, living like a boxer for five weeks to prepare, and what he liked about the unique duality of the storytelling. He also talked about how he feels about Jax Teller’s darker journey on Season 5 of Sons of Anarchy and how the loss of Opie (and Ryan Hurst, as an actor on the series) really affected things, that he hasn’t gotten to see any more footage of Pacific Rim yet but that director Guillermo del Toro says that it’s 10 times better than anything he’s ever directed, and how he’s taking this six-month hiatus to write a film based on a true story that he owns the rights to, about a young man who, after an unfortunate circumstance, found himself running the third biggest drug cartel in Mexico.
Collider: You’ve been playing a really interesting assortment of characters lately. Has the selection of projects you’ve done been intentional, in any way?
CHARLIE HUNNAM: I’ve just been trying to keep it fresh. Actually, that’s not even true. I haven’t been trying to do anything. I’ve just been going where my heart is. I have no big plan, other than unless I want to see the movie, I don’t want to act in it.
When you read this script, what was your first impression of the story and character?
HUNNAM: There was a real poetry in that script that gave one the sense that it was going to be a very lyrical piece. There was a lot of silence in the script. A lot of times, silence in a script means that you’re just reading endless action exposition, but that was not really the case here. The world itself seemed to have a personality in this film and the voice of that world was silence, and I love that. That’s probably been heightened by my experience of working in television, which is all about sound. You’ll never get a moment of silence unless there’s something really extraordinary going on, on screen, visually. They never let a moment of silence pass without being filled in television because it’s a very sound-driven medium. You have to keep people engaged until you get them through the next commercial. I’m not complaining about working in TV, at all, but just as an artistic reaction, I find myself being so drawn to moments of silence where things are allowed to breathe. Continue reading Charlie Talks DEADFALL, SONS OF ANARCHY Season 5, PACIFIC RIM, and Writing a Movie About a Drug Lord for WB and Legendary