40 interesting facts about Charlie Hunnam from 'Sons of Anarchy'

Charlie Hunnam is a British-born actor known for his role as Jax Teller on the "Sons of Anarchy." Here are 40 interesting facts about this talented and handsome actor.

1. His full name is Charles Matthew Hunnam.

2. He was born on April 10th, 1980 in Newcastle, England, UK.

3. Charlie's mom was an artist, and his dad was a scrap-metal dealer, and they separated when he was young.

4. He has one older brother and two younger half brothers, and he calls his older brother "one of the toughest guys" he's met.

5. He had a rough upbringing and he ended up fighting a lot because "people tried to prove their worth by fighting the Newcastle kid." He had a "horrible time" in school because he had to defend himself a lot.

6. One of his favorite sports to play in school was rugby.

7. Hunnam got expelled from secondary school and did his exams from home.

8. He attended Cumbria College of Art and Design, where he graduated with a degree in the theory and history of film with a side in performing arts.

9. Started acting at the age of 17 after being discovered clowning around in a shoe shop.

10. A production manager for the Newcastle-based children's show Byker Grove approached him and Hunnam was later cast in his first role as Jason in three episodes of the show.
    

11. He once out-starred Anne Hathaway and Jamie Bell... As Nicholas Nickleby in Douglas McGrath's 2002 adaptation of the Dickens series.

12. He later appeared as Nathan Maloney in "Queer as Folk" and Daz in "Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?" in 1999.

13. He has the best New Year's tradition. "I tend to go to bed really early on New Year's Eve," he says. "Then I wake up early, drive up while it's still dark, and hike out somewhere beautiful to watch the sunrise. I just take a couple hours and have a post-mortem of the year."

14. The film Excalibur inspired him to become an actor.

15. He was "The Face" of Emporio Armani's ad campaign in 2005.

16. He doesn't work out with a trainer. "That's an hour that I can carve out to just have by myself and just listen to some music and zone out," he says.

17. His father passed away in 2013.

18. He says attributes the man he is today because of his upbringing, saying, "I grew up in a pretty socially and economically depressed place. I felt really conscious as a very, very young man - like 7 or 8 - that everybody was just so caught up in survival and the drudgery of just getting through the day."

19. He owned at least 85 pairs of Nike Airmax 90s. "That was poor-boy syndrome of not being able to afford the sneakers that I wanted that all the other kids had a school, and then getting to 25 years old and being like, 'You know what? I can buy all the f***ing sneakers I want.'"

20. He's dyslexic.

21. He was voted ninth in Elle Girl's list of the top 100 sexiest men of 2005.

22. In 2008, he landed the part of Jax Teller on "Sons of Anarchy", a role for which he has received several award nominations.

23. Charlie has been married before. Charlie met his ex-wife Katherine Towne at an audition for "Dawson's Creek" in 1998, and they married after knowing each other for three weeks. They divorced in 2002 after three years.

24. Charlie has more than looks in common with his "Sons of Anarchy" alter ego Jax Teller. "I definitely grew up in a similar world. My dad's a real hard guy. He made money outside of the law. So I was very aware of the outlaw mentality," he told USA Today.

25. He truly wanted to play Christian Grey, but knew that it was not going to work. "I was going to finish playing a psychopath who'd just lost his wife [in Sons of Anarchy], and five days later I'd be on set playing Christian Grey. I was like, 'This is going to be a f**king disaster. It was the opposite of how I've tried to ground my career, not stretch myself too thin, and always do my homework," Charlie revealed to Men's Health.

26. Charlie is a writer as well as an actor. He wrote a script about Vlad the Impaler, and the rights were swooped up by Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B.

27. He's also been beavering away penning another script on the life of American drug lord Edgar Valdez. "It's an exploration of the death of the American dream. That's what I'm interested in," he told British GQ.

28. He met his current girlfriend, jewelry designer Morgana McNelis, in 2007, and he wears a ring she gave him that's engraved with the phrase "I love you endlessly."

30. The couple are very much in love and he seems very surprised by all the attention that he receives. As he has explained, "I have a girlfriend. If you were, like, 25 and a p*ssy hound, being famous would be awesome. But it's not like I'm spending too much time in Vegas or in the Hollywood clubs or anything like that. So it doesn't really benefit me much."

31. His net worth is $8 million.

32. Charlie has been very open about his marijuana usage and one of his many talents include the ability to smoke a joint and head straight to the gym.

33. Apparently, he hasn't eaten pork in 25 years.

34. He's not interested in doing more comedy. "That's a whole different skillset that I neither enjoy nor feel compelled to do more of," he says. "Because I've worked with comedy people, and those motherfuckers are seriously funny. You step in with the Seth Rogens of the world, you better have some jokes."

35. Charlie is very close with Kurt Sutter, the creator of Sons of Anarchy. "He's kind of my Hollywood dad. And I'm kind of like the son he never had. That's the depth of our relationship. I feel like it's reached that significance. We just truly love and respect each other." Sutter agrees: "I'd fucking take a bullet for Charlie at this point, and I think he feels the same way."

36. He carried raw eggs to the set of Sons. The craft service guys cooked them for him. "They're like, 'Why are you bringing your own eggs?' I'm like, 'Cause your eggs are from Monsanto. Mine are from a farm down the road.'"

37. He takes clothes from the "Sons of Anarchy" set with him home. "I seem to have developed a really big wardrobe recently, but that's more because I've been stealing clothes off of movie sets and off of Sons."

38. He is of English, 1/8th Irish, and some Scottish, descent.

39. He auditioned for the lead role in Thor. He was also supposed to star in "Fifty Shades of Grey" but dropped out because of scheduling issues.

40. Charlie was set to star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008). Jason Segel wrote the role of Aldous Snow with him in mind, but he dropped out due to not feeling the project was right for him. Russell Brand ended up getting the role.