Everything ‘Sons of Anarchy’ Star Charlie Hunnam Has Said About Returning as Jax Teller
Sons of Anarchy was a career-changing series for star Charlie Hunnam. As Jax Teller — the lead character of Kurt Sutter’s SAMCRO biker drama — Hunnam was the face of one of TV’s hottest shows. And he immersed himself in that job for seven seasons.
When the series came to an end in 2014, the Brit admits that he had a tough time saying goodbye to the character. Once he took that cut off, he made it clear there was no way he was going to put it back on. But recently, he’s had a change of heart. Here’s everything Hunnam has said about returning as Jax Teller.
Charlie Hunnam spent eight years bringing Jax ‘to life’ on ‘Sons of Anarchy’
Hunnam had been working for about a decade — in mostly small roles — when he landed the role of Jax Teller, and it was a game changer for his career and for himself as an actor. He told Cinema Blend in 2017 — while promoting his film King Arthur — that he had never had an experience of getting so close and so deeply meshed with a character before.
“I felt when I finished Sons that it was a real process to get back to center, and try to exorcize him out of my psyche for as much as possible. Because I’d been living with him for eight years, you know, trying to bring him to life,” Hunnam said.
He says he went through a grieving process when moving on from Jax, and he made excuses to visit the set numerous times.
“I knew the security guards and for a couple of days said, ‘Oh, I forgot something,’” Hunnam revealed to Glamour Magazine. “So they’d let me onto the set, and I’d just walk around at night because I wanted to be in that environment and go through a personal process of saying goodbye.”
Playing Jax Teller was like a college experience
While speaking to People magazine in 2020 about the impact of Sons of Anarchy, Hunnam admitted that the FX series gave him “the ability to have confidence” that he would be able to make acting a “lifelong career.” The Newcastle, England native compared his seven seasons on the show to a college experience.
“I think I went into Sons of Anarchy being a pretty unaccomplished actor in terms of my skill set,” he said. “I wasn’t one of these people that were born enormously and innately talented. I had to really cultivate a skill set.”
Hunnam explained that he cultivated a lot of his skill set by going to work and shooting 10 pages a day for seven years. He feels like those were his “college days.”
“I went in knowing very little about the process of acting and came out knowing a little bit more,” Hunnam said.
The ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star would ‘never, ever put that cut back on’
During that same 2020 interview, Hunnam admitted that fans were constantly asking him about reprising the role of Jax. But, his answer was always “no.” Hunnam explained that he “would never, ever put that cut back on.” He added that he wouldn’t even put his character’s rings back on, not even for Halloween.
“It was a very deep experience,” he explained. “I lived with that character inside me for years, like, in a very real way. In a way that manifested in ways that I could never even [have] imagined.”
Hunnam also noted that Jax is dead now, so there is no way of ever bringing him back. He made it clear that “when he died, he died.”
Charlie Hunnam won’t appear on ‘Mayans MC’
In 2018, when Mayans MC premiered on FX, Hunnam told Entertainment Tonight that he would never make an appearance on the Sons of Anarchy spinoff. Not even for a brief cameo in a flashback.
“No, no… I had the deepest experience of my career coming out of that [when SOA ended in 2014). I had become that character, had become so deeply integrated into who I was, I literally didn’t realize until the day we wrapped and we put him to rest and I felt I went through a period of two or three weeks of, like, real bereavement,” Hunnam explained.
“I have his cut and, you know, people have been to my house and asked if they could try it on and I [say] ‘No one will ever put that cut on again’ and ‘We got to respect that dude. He’s not with us anymore.’ So I would never bring him back from the dead for something like that… It was seven years of my life. He sort of became sacred to me.”
The ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star is ‘exploring’ the possibility of putting that cut back on
After years of insisting that he would never revisit the character that made him famous — and that he would never put Jax’s cut and rings back on — Hunnam has suddenly changed his tune.
Now, it appears that Hunnam’s opinion on revisiting the character is changing. During a recent discussion with Access Hollywood, Hunnam made a comment that has the internet going crazy. Despite the fact that Jax met his demise in the Sons of Anarchy finale, Hunnam has apparently come up with an idea that is making him consider a possible return to the role.
“Since you asked, I have an idea that I’m exploring in its infancy where [Jax’s return] could be a possibility,” Hunnam said. “It would be something that I would be incredibly excited about, so we’re sort of, like I said, in the infancy of exploring the viability of the idea,” Hunnam clarified. “But next time I talk to you, hopefully I’ll have more information on that.”
What could this new idea be? Maybe he will actually do a flashback in Mayans MC. Or, maybe it could actually be a prequel series? Hopefully, Hunnam will have more to say soon.
All seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy and the first four seasons of Mayans MC are now playing on Hulu. Mayans MC will return for season 5 in 2023. Hunnam’s new series Shantaram debuts on AppleTV+ on October 14.
