Charlie Hunnam has gone into details about his, eh, pulling out of the big screen adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, and it sounds like it was a really tough time for the British actor.
From the sounds of it, it really does seem like a scheduling conflict, and nothing more sinister than that; but the actor obviously still feels really bad about the whole situation.
He spoke to VMan Magazine, and opened up when he was asked exactly what went down.
He was to star in upcoming horror flick Crimson Peak, as well as film the final season of Sons of Anarchy and that's how things got messy as there was an overlap with 'Peak'.
“I’d given Guillermo (del Toro’) my word, over a year before, that I was going to do this film,” he explained. “People were saying, ‘Are you crazy? Guillermo still has got four months to recast, it’s the fourth lead, you can go and do this [instead].’ I said, ‘I can’t. He’s my friend, I’ve done a film with him, I gave him my word.'”
“I’m pretty mercurial and a very difficult, long-winded decision-maker at the best of times. It was deeply unpleasant and challenging emotionally,” he went on. “I really, really pride myself on being a professional and a man of keeping my word. It means a lot to me, truly.”
So he called 'Shades' director Sam Taylor-Johnson to break the news, and the two became emotional. “I called her and we both cried our eyes out on the phone for 20 minutes,” adding that "There was a lot of personal stuff going on in my life that left me on real emotional shaky ground and mentally weak. I just got myself so fucking overwhelmed and I was sort of having panic attacks about the whole thing.”
If you can take anything from the above quotes, and it's worth reading the finer details, it's that Hunnam is a fundamentally decent human being. He gave his word to his mate and stuck by it, despite superstardom beckoning on the back of the role he ultimately turned down.
To be fair, superstardom looks likely anyway. He has blockbuster Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur - directed by Guy Ritchie - due next year. He plays Arthur.
