Charlie Hunnam: As a writer-director, I remain unsatisfied

Charlie Hunnam: Despite his lengthy and prosperous playing career, British actor Charlie Hunnam, who has starred in films like Sons of Anarchy, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, and Green Street, to mention a few, says he still hopes to pursue his initial goal of becoming a writer-director.

In an interview with the Prestige Junkie podcast, Hunnam discussed how his career unexpectedly changed when he left filmmaking to pursue acting full-time due to an early acting gig.

Speaking about his early goals, he stated: “I wanted to be a writer/director when I went to film school. I always dreamed of being a filmmaker since I spent my whole childhood watching movies and thinking about narrative and cinema.

Hunnam clarified how his course changed after his casting in

“And then, somewhat by chance, though I don’t think these things are random,” he continued, “I got an acting role in a children’s TV show called Byker Grove, which I shot in Newcastle, where I’m from.”

And that helped me get an agent, which helped me land my second audition, for Queer As Folk. I had already relocated to America and was pursuing acting as a profession by the time I was eighteen, almost nineteen. And now, almost 27 years later, I’m still a writer-director who is unsatisfied.

Playing serial murderer and corpse snatcher Ed Gein in the thriller Monster: The Ed Gein narrative has been a defining feature of Hunnam’s 2025.

At first, the actor found it difficult to embody the mindset of the Butcher of Plainfield, whose atrocities served as the inspiration for characters in movies like Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Norman Bates in Psycho.

After being able to “go deeper” into Gein’s mind, Hunnam found the role to be very fulfilling.

“With Ed’s, I thought it felt completely impossible when I had accepted the role and started getting into it,” he said. Simply put, it seemed like an impossible task. I was terrified by the subject matter’s gloom and darkness, and I was unable to identify the person I believed this man to be.

“And what I discovered was that it turned out to be one of the most fulfilling processes I had as I traveled through that and kept pushing myself to advance and go deeper.”