The 'Sons of Anarchy' star revealed that he could not put up with the grueling schedule because he loved the character so much.
- Sep 10, 2014
AceShowbiz - It was a tough choice for Charlie Hunnam to leave "Fifty Shades of Grey". The "Sons of Anarchy" star was once attached to the highly-anticipated adaptation of E.L. James' erotic novel but he disappointed many fans when he quit due to scheduling conflicts.
Apparently, there's another big reason why he ditched the role of Christian Grey. The 34-year-old cited anxiety issues, saying he had a "nervous breakdown" over portraying the character. "I wouldn't have signed up in the first place if I didn't want to do it," Hunnam told Us Weekly at a Television Critics' Association party last month. "It was a really, really difficult time in my life."
He actually had a pleasant meeting with director Sam Taylor-Johnson. "Sam and I just fell in love, creatively," Hunnam recalled. "We started talking about this thing and I just felt so excited. I fell in love with the character and started seeing him and becoming intoxicated, which is the way I work: I find a character I love and I start thinking about it all the time."
However, Hunnam was also attached to star in Guillermo del Toro's "Crimson Peak" at that time and had promised to do it long before committing to "Fifty Shades of Grey". He was also still filming the last season of FX's "Sons of Anarchy". He said, "I was going to finish [filming] 'Sons' at like 11 P.M. Friday night, get on the plane Saturday morning to Vancouver for 'Fifty', missing the whole first week of rehearsal and start shooting Monday morning. And I was going to shoot that film, wrap that on the Wednesday and the following Monday I was going to start shooting 'Crimson Peak' in Toronto. I just had like ... frankly, something of a nervous breakdown."
He knew that forcing himself to put up with the grueling schedule would be the fall of him. "I just said, 'I can't...I can't...' To fail on such a grand scale - because 'Fifty' 's going to be massive, it's going to be huge. I really didn't want to fail on such a grand scale, and I just couldn't transition from Jax Teller to Christian Grey in 48 hours. It's painful because I loved the character and I wanted to do it. I'm also a man of my word," he said.
Hunnam was eventually replaced by Jamie Dornan. "Fifty Shades of Grey" will be released in U.S. theaters February 13, 2015.
