With the Arthurian legend dating all the way back to the 5th century, and having already been depicted in a number of films, there was plenty for Charlie Hunnam to consume when he was cast as Guy Ritchie's version of the mythical figure. However, Charlie Hunnam actually avoided this material ahead of shooting King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword, and instead focused his attention on getting into the rhythm of Guy Ritchie's rat-a-tat-tat dialogue, which he did by re-watching the filmmaker's work. When asked about his research ahead of King Arthur, Charlie Hunnam admitted:
I was more interested actually in going back and revisiting Guy's work, and sort of just getting into that flow, because he has such a specific sensibility to his directorial style.
Charlie Hunnam actually made this admission to me when I recently sat down with the affable Brit to discuss King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword. But while Charlie Hunnam picked up the sensibilities and patter of Guy Ritchie's writing and how his characters deliver his dialogue from these films, he also noticed how there are elements of the director himself in most of his characters. When I pushed Charlie Hunnam on the specifics of what he was trying to gain from watching the likes of Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Rocknrolla and Sherlock Holmes, he added:
One of the elements that we really wanted to inject into this was that fun, banter, camaraderie with all of the boys. A real reimagining of what the knights of the roundtable interaction and disposition would be. It's funny, a lot of Guy's personality emerges in all of the characters in the work that he does. You feel Guy in his films, they are sort of very personal in that way. It's interesting to observe on set, because his voice his so present in the language of the script, I found myself and sort of everyone else doing a Guy Ritchie impersonation. There's a lot of Guy in King Arthur.
Charlie Hunnam had originally explained to me that he decided against focusing on delving into the character's long and illustrious past because screenwriters Guy Ritchie, Lionel Wigram and Joby Harold had already created such a vivid new interpretation of King Arthur. Obviously Hunnam was allowed to add to this, with Guy Ritchie encouraging his collaboration throughout production, but Hunnam insisted that all of the books, films and whatnot were irrelevant, because, "Not a lot of the source material available had a lot with what we were doing anyway." You can watch a snippet of my interview with Charlie Hunnam regarding King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword below.
Meanwhile, here's my review of King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword, which I proudly and defiantly insist is a whole lot of fun. You can now find out for yourself, because King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword is in theaters starting tonight.
