King Arthur is a tale that has been told as long as there have been tales to tell. When it was announced that Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Sherlock Holmes) was going to put his stamp on the Arthurian legend, anticipation soared.
When Sons of Anarchy breakout Charlie Hunnam was cast in the title role, the project hit a new level of cinematic awesomeness.
This is not your parents’ King Arthur. Heck, it’s not even your great-great-grandparents’ story of the born king who pulled the sword Excalibur from a rock when no one else could, thus revealing the next true leader of England. The film is faithful to the birth of a legend, but has Ritchie’s trademark directorial stamp strewn throughout. It’s action-packed and breathtakingly shot in a manner that could give you whiplash, and that is a very good thing for fans enamored by Ritchie’s unique vision.
Hunnam and Ritchie dish their deeply personal experience of making King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword, when they first became aware of Camelot and reveal the biggest challenge of living in Guy Ritchie’s medieval world.
Also, will Hunnam ever return to TV?
Armor up and head to the next page to read the full interview.
What was your first memory of the Arthur legend?
Charlie Hunnam: John Boorman’s Excalibur and I probably watched it too young! [I also] had read the Once and Future King. I was always carving sticks into swords and challenging my brother to sword fights. I felt like there was a good four or five year period where I was in it almost every day.
Guy Ritchie: My experience with the Arthurian legend is mostly by John Boorman’s film, which I found provocative and exciting when I was ten. I suppose that influenced me to want to make my own version of the Arthurian legend.
As a fan of Arthur, was that all it took for you to portray him?
CH: I was excited about what Guy would do with this world as an enormous fan of Guy’s. The idea of making this fresh, young, exciting and accessible for a new audience was thrilling. It was just the one-line pitch for me: Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur.
Warner Bros.
What do you think it is about King Arthur’s story that millennia have gone by and people are still fascinated by it?
GR: The essence of the legend is transcendence of self—to go from an infant to an adult or from a pauper to a king and from being completely dependent on others to being completely independent.
CH: The thing that I could relate to was the idea of the cultivation of self belief and subduing one’s inner demons in order to strengthen one’s disposition to be able to go out and do great things and beat insurmountable odds.
Did someone inspire your performance?
CH: Conor McGregor [UFC fighter] was someone I drew a lot of inspiration from and what he has said about knowing what you’re capable of, how when you’re in the ring, you are really just fighting yourself.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is not the Knights of the Round Table tale that many are familiar with. How did you start to become Arthur?
CH: We’re only telling the first chapter of the story. I love that Guy’s instinct would be a more ignoble version. He says, “We’ve seen the story of the nobleman who goes on the noble quest to become the noble king.” This is the story of a reluctant hero, but where did that reluctance come from?
Where does one even begin to tackle something this huge?
GR: Usually, there’s an overriding sense of fear that it’s not going to happen. But, the kind of fear that galvanizes activity is the kind of fear that I can live with.
What was the biggest challenge of immersing yourself in this medieval world?
CH: It was a really fine needle that we were threading—taking the world seriously, giving it the respect that it is due and also throwing that all out the window and tackling it with an appropriate level of irrelevance and originality.
GR: I was unfamiliar with this genre and a budget this size. The task is to find the tonality. You have to, as a director, steer the head of the tiger.
Will you ever return to TV?
CH: I never say never. I love the rhythm of TV. But, I’m incredibly grateful with how things are going now. I love doing a diverse range of films. I’ve been developing a few ideas and I have three projects set up at three studios. I have some, long way down the line, desire to direct a film.
Could we see more of King Arthur in the future?
GR: Yes. It is such a rich stew. We have plenty more stew out there [laughs].
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