‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ star Charlie Hunnam recalled threatening to start a brawl with Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender during an audition for the lead role as Arthur. He also described Guy Ritchie’s version as a combination of ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels’.
According to Empire, Hunnam admitted that he threatened to fight other actors for the lead role as a King Arthur for Ritchie’s retelling of the legendary British leader’s origin story.
Hunnam recalled, “I said, ‘You know what? F*cking stop the camera. I’m starting to lose my temper. I know those other pricks you’ve got reading for this role (namely Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender). If you bring them in right now, I’ll f*cking fight them both at once for the role, and we’ll see what’s up with the physicality.’ Guy said, ‘F*cking hell, alright – calm down, mate.’”
The 36-year old English actor teased that his Arthur was an entirely different version of the original king famous in medieval histories and romances. According to Yahoo! Movies, he said, “We wanted to make an ignoble Arthur, at least at first… We wanted him to feel contemporary, selfish, somewhat rough around the edges.”
Hunnam plays a rugged, street-wise man who runs the back passages of violent Londonium with his gang of equally unruly men. He finds out about his royal lineage after he manages to pull out the legendary sword in the stone. He then discovers that the villainous Vortigern has stolen his birthright from him and goes on to unite the people to take back his crown as the rightful king.
According to Birth. Movies. Death., Hunnam described the film as a mash-up of two different feature films. He said, “(Ritchie’s) created a very rich, exciting world. I describe it to my friends as Lord Of The Rings meets Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. (It’s) an unlikely marriage of two things, but it works.” The recently released official trailer revealed hints of Ritchie’s gritty yet playful signature cinematic style against a medieval world.
Hunnam is best known for his roles on various television series including FX’s ‘Sons of Anarchy’, Channel 4’s ‘Queer as Folk’, Fox’s ‘Undeclared’, and The WB’s ‘Young Americans’. He also worked on full-feature films such as Anthony Minghella’s ‘Cold Mountain’, Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Children of Men’, Stefan Ruzowitzky’s ‘Deadfall’, and two Guillermo del Toro films ‘Pacific Rim’ and ‘Crimson Peak’. He is also set to star on James Gray’s upcoming ‘The Lost City of Z’ as well as Michael Noer’s ‘Papillon’.
‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ is an upcoming adventure-drama and fantasy film scheduled to premiere in theaters on March 24, 2017. It is written and directed by Guy Ritchie and co-written by Lionel Wigram and Joby Harold.
It is produced by Safehouse Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Weed Road Pictures, and Warner Bros.
