The Daily Gossip: Hello, Charlie, how are you?

Charlie: Good thank you; good what time is it over there for you?

The Daily Gossip: Um, it’s a quarter to 8 pm

Charlie: PM?

The Daily Gossip: Yeah and you?

Charlie: I’m in los angles so it’s a quarter to 10 AM for me.

The Daily Gossip: Alright, not bad.

Charlie: Not bad.

The Daily Gossip: I bet it’s not as cold as we are because we’re at minus 20 or something.

Charlie: No where close. It’s actually sunny and beautiful outside it’s been raining for a few days but it dried up today and it’s looking pretty gorgeous

The Daily Gossip: Yes, that’s good. Now you’re originally from the UK, aren’t you?

Charlie: Yeah.

The Daily Gossip: You’ve lived in the states for how long now?

Charlie: For ten years.

The Daily Gossip: Alright, that long?

Charlie: Yeah. I came over. I had an opportunity to come over at the very, very beginning of my career. I’d done a show in England called Queer as Folk and it got a little bit of attention out in America so I came over. I came over and just never left. I always intended and still intend to go to move back to England at some point but I didn’t think there was any point in moving back though while I still had to search and there was such a big fight to get every job. I want to move back where I am in the position where I could just get a script and choose my jobs at will but I certainly haven’t gotten to that point yet.

The Daily Gossip: Do you recommend that there is anything British about you that sort of highlights where you’re born?

Charlie: Yeah. I guess. Yeah. I think that the British dress, for the whole, a little smarter than Americans do. And so when I bring my clothes over from England or when I’m back in England, I tend to particularly, not so much from here now, but when I go back to England I realize that I walk around most of the time in just a hoodie and jeans and then I start to get the peacoats on again and the shoes and the good shirts and stuff like that but I don’t know if it’s America in general, or just the kind of culture of young people specifically but statically, I guess it’s a little sloppier.

The Daily Gossip: That’s true. You were doing films mostly but what interested you in Sons of Anarchy?

Charlie: I think that film right now is in an awful state. I mean Hollywood is really a total disaster right now. There’s no money in the independent world anymore. There’s really only like very kind of big studio films that were getting made and that’s never been what I’ve been interested in doing. I mean, of course, the studio system does make some pretty wonderful films, but there are very few and far between and the competition is very fierce for those films. And so I just responded, I just thought the writing was of very, very high quality and I thought that the idea was original and that Kurt was a serious guy, like a real story teller, who was attempting to do and a show of some quality and little class about it rather than just turning out the same old garbage. I was actually feeling very, very frustrated. I was actually thinking about quitting acting.

The Daily Gossip: Really?

Charlie: Yeah. I wasn’t able, I so scarcely found anything that I was interested in and that inevitably didn’t get it. So I had actually taken a couple of years off and written a screen play because I just needed to do something where I felt like I had a little bit of control over my life. I wasn’t just waiting for the phone to ring everyday. And then, it came to the end and I just actually finished writing the screen play and then I got sent the script of Sons of Anarchy and like I said, just really responded. I thought the quality of writing was really high and so I signed on.

The Daily Gossip: Well that was the perfect timing then.

Charlie: Yeah. No, it was the perfect timing and it’s funny how life works out like that sometimes.

The Daily Gossip: The show takes a side of a motorcycle gang’s life. Did it seem to you like a tight knit? It’s kind of an intense community, isn’t it?

Charlie: Yeah. Yeah. I’m almost quick to say, you know what, whether the TV version of a motorcycle, I mean I went out and spent time and have become very friendly with several guys that live this life for real and although we do a definitely an admirable job of representing it pretty accurately, it’s still made for TV version of it. So they are. I think they are though generally the culture of it, of motorcycle culture is pretty tight-knit. And it’s for instance, unless you’re involved in the club, you’re referred to as us and them. Everyone else is just a civilian. There’s us and then there’s everyone else. I think that is pretty accurate and something we do well in the show, reflecting that.

The Daily Gossip: Did that change your view, your sort of understanding towards the gangs?

Charlie: Yeah. They don’t call themselves gangs. That’s kind of a label that’s been put on them from the outside world. Hey call themselves definitely motorcycle clubs. I guess it did and it didn’t. I grew up in a kind of pretty rough working class environment. I grew up in Newcastle, which is a pretty tough town and my dad’s a really tough guy. And so I kind of, I knew a little bit of that mentality anyway. What actually surprised me most about hanging out with these guys is actually how benign their day was, day to day. I am sure once and a while there is some excitement that goes on or something big happens but in terms of a day-to-day it wasn’t that far removed from the way a lot of people I grew up with lived their lives. I mean certainly to have a fight but not certainly far from Alcapolne, you know?

The Daily Gossip: Alright. Did you have any riding experience prior to this?

The Daily Gossip: I mean riding with bikes.

Charlie: Yeah, no. I did.

The Daily Gossip: Sorry.

Charlie: I did a lot of bike riding for that film and then when I was a kid I had been on dirt bikes and stuff a little bit but it was very different riding these big Harley’s street bikes. It’s been a lot of fun though; I have my own bike now. I kind of fell in love with it.

The Daily Gossip: What type do you have?

Charlie: A Harley. Pretty much very, very similar to the one I ride in the show. I ride a Dina, which is the model of Harley that we ride on the show.

The Daily Gossip: Yeah, okay good. Do they also have to two films, I don’t know, have you done it already? The Stencil Person and then The Last Full Measure?

Charlie: Yeah that’s what I am frustrated. That’s why I was talking about being frustrated earlier. Those two films that I was attached to for a long time that never got made, and aren’t going to get made. They are just an online from be just like a hangover from when they were initially announced but both of those films; really, really good casts. But were being made outside of the studio system like using secondary money, you know, foreign financed and stuff like that and they just fell apart in the eleventh hour. And I was scheduled to be shooting a film right now with a fantastic crew, really amazing cast, and a beautiful script that I’ve been attached to for three years and in the eleventh hour, literally a week before we were supposed to go down and start shooting, the money fell through. so I just feel really, really fortunate that I have a regular gig in the shape of Sons of Anarchy so that I don’t have to at least, it’s always a heart break when you put a lot of time and effort into a creative process and nothing comes of it. But I’m not also, I don’t have to deal with the monetary disaster of that also, I can, you know, Sons of Anarchy allows me to afford to live, you know?

The Daily Gossip: Exactly. Yeah. What about your own screen play? There are plans?

Charlie: Yeah. Hopefully it will be made this year.

The Daily Gossip: Oh right!

Charlie: Yeah. I sold it three and a half, three years ago, maybe right before I started shooting the show and hopefully, you know, it takes time, but we have a director now that everyone is very excited about. Hopefully it’ll get made this year. There’s a competing project out there so hopefully they will get their bums into gear and get it going sooner rather than later.

The Daily Gossip: Yeah. What kind of project was it? I mean to write your own stuff and get it sold, because that can be tricky.

Charlie: Yeah. I was so frustrated with my acting career that I just decided I needed to take some time and do something for myself. And I have been sitting on the story for a while. I’d been to Romania and spent a long time in Romania shooting Cold Mountain. And so I learned the story of Vlad and thought it was really fascinating and it had never been told before. Well, never been told in a big way, you know? So I just set out to really tell the true story of Vlad the Impaler. You know, he was the man accredited for leading the last crusade. He led his life opposing the expansion of the Ottoman army of the Ottoman Empire and so he was a real hero in his part of the world. And of course, to make it a little bit more accessible and give it little bit more of a commercial twist, to weave in the mythology and show how he became the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but he certainly doesn’t bite anybody, or there is no vampirism in our version of it.

The Daily Gossip: Are you going to act in it?

Charlie: I would love to do a little part in it. It’ll just be whether, they are going to try to shoot it over the summer and I might not be available, I might be shooting (inaudible) but it was lucky. I got really lucky. There was a couple of people bidding up for it, there was a couple people that wanted to buy the script when I sent it out and so I was actually able to skew a producer credit, an executive producer credit. I’m not actually producing the film in any real way but I will be credited as one of the producers if it gets made. And that will be a nice thing also, you know?

The Daily Gossip: Yeah exactly. Do you plan to write more?

Charlie: Yeah, definitely. I have two or three ideas that actually, now that I’m not going to do that film that I was supposed to be shooting right now, I am going to sit down and write something, a very, very small story. The budget for Vlad is about 85 million. I am going to write a very small and easily financeable story abut my dad, actually, growing up in Newcastle. So I’m going to go and spend some time with my dad and write that story.

The Daily Gossip: Okay.

Charlie: I am thinking I may be able to produce that in a more hands on way in terms of hiring the director that I want and hiring an actor to play my dad and stuff and actually fully produce that film, which would be great.

The Daily Gossip: Yeah. And how does he feel about it?

Charlie: You know, it’s taken him awhile. He’s a really, has a really, really interesting life and like I said before, is a real tough guy from a real very, very tough corner of England. It’s taken him a while because as most tough guys are that flirt with the wrong side of the law, he is very, very private man and it’s taken it a while to get his head around it. But after he read Vlad and saw that I was very, very serious about writing, he kind of softened up a little bit and now he is going to help me.

The Daily Gossip: Yeah.

Sons of Anarchy Episode 2 TX Date: Weds 5th May, Bravo, 10pm

Source: The daily Gossip

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