Charlie Hunnam Finally Admits He Has a ‘Weird Accent’ Years After Being Called Out By ‘Sons of Anarchy’ Fans
Charlie Hunnam played American outlaw Jax Teller for seven seasons on Kurt Sutter’s biker drama Sons of Anarchy. It was a career-making role for the actor. And his performance was so convincing at first, that many fans had no idea he was actually British. But toward the end of the series’ run, some started accusing him of being a bit “lazy” with his accent. Now, Hunnam has finally admitted what fans called him out for a decade ago.
Charlie Hunnam was called out by ‘Sons of Anarchy’ fans for being lazy
It may still come as a surprise to some fans, but Hunnam is a British actor who was born in Newcastle and raised in Northwest England. His acting career began in the mid-1990s on the local children’s show Byker Grove. And Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies hand-picked Hunnam for the part of Nathan Maloney, which really sparked his acting career.
In the late 1990s, Hunnam relocated to the United States to pursue a career in Hollywood. And over the past two decades, Hunnam has worked on both sides of the pond. Which has turned Hunnam’s accent into a confusing hybrid of the British and American dialects.
On Sons of Anarchy, some fans pointed out that Hunnam’s accent wasn’t very convincing at times. By season 7, some were calling him out for being downright lazy.
“Charlie’s accent is so lazy this season!” one fan wrote on Reddit at the time. “In previous seasons his accent would be noticeable a handful of times. This season it seems every other scene he’s not even hiding it anymore.”
The ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star admits he has a ‘weird accent’
In his new series Shantaram, Hunnam plays an Australian fugitive named Lin Ford who lives in 1980s Bombay. He told 7 News Australia, that this character’s accent is “very difficult” because Australians “make sounds that don’t exist anywhere in the world.”
“I had a wonderful dialect coach and a lot of Australian friends who helped me, but honestly I think I probably got about 75 percent of the way there,” he said.
“I have a strange accent myself, it’s half English, half American, and everybody, my entire life, has thought I was Australian. I have a lot of family in Melbourne – I came to Melbourne the first time when I was two years old and spent six weeks there, so I’ve been coming to Australia all my life.”
Charlie Hunnam has been struggling with dialects and accents for years
Hunnam’s latest accent struggles are nothing new for the actor. When Sons of Anarchy ended, Hunnam moved on to the film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Which, once again, required him to change accents.
But instead of going back to his native British accent naturally, Hunnam was stuck in that British/American hybrid accent he now claims as his own. He had to hire a professional to help him relearn his natural British dialect.
“I’ve been acting and living in America for so long and acting with American dialects,” Hunnam said at the time.
“By the time I got hired to return back to England, I had adopted–just naturally–a lot of those cadences and inflections. So I hired a dialect coach to help me get back into the right rhythm of British speech.”
Shantaram premieres October 14 on Apple TV+. All seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy are now playing on Hulu.
