Charlie Hunnam quotes:

A lot of my friends are gangsters. Not like gangsters - well, yeah, all sorts of levels of criminality - but not the types that are preying on innocent people. I have no interest in the type of criminality that has no respect for collateral damage.

If I went to them all dressed up and flashed a nice smile for the cameras it would probably be easier for me to get work. But I just can't tolerate it.

I got expelled from high school, and then did my exams from home. I decided, through that experience, that I was going to expediate my plan and didn't go to university. Instead, I went to a community college and studied the theory and history of film with the idea that I wanted to write and direct.

Everybody, at some point in their life, has fallen down and not felt like getting back up, but you have to, no matter how difficult it is.

I love hip hop music, I make hip hop music.

I was playing pretty boys and these angelic roles like Nicholas Nickleby and all that stuff. And I was like, 'What am I doing? This isn't who I am, as a man or an artist.' I had to overcome people's belief that I was too pretty to be a badass.

If I'd seen a grown man beating a crippled boy, of course I'd intervene. If my father died and left my mother destitute, it's your instinct to take care of her. So when I started to think about it in those terms, it started to make sense to me.

I'm happy being an actor, it's what I have always wanted to do. I'm just lucky I got to do it so early.

If I'd seen a grown man beating a crippled boy, of course I'd intervene. If my father died and left my mother destitute, it's your instinct to take care of her. So when I started to think about it in those terms, it started to make sense to me

It always seemed to me like it was a significant thing to do with one's life to be an actor 'cause I love movies and I felt like, not to be grandiose about it, but there is something important about film with the function it provides to general society.

Being at the mercy of the acting profession, in the early days of one's career, is really brutal and feels like you have no control over your life, at all.

So I try not to do press and if you can keep the balance of keeping a certain degree of anonymity and do interesting work then you can hope for a degree of career longevity.

I realise few people get to live the life they always wanted, but I'm so neurotic, I don't really think about it. I'm too busy thinking, 'I hope I don't screw up my next scene.'

I get invited to literally every single movie premiere that's going on.

No, I do a bunch of things to entertain myself. I paint, I make music, I take photographs.

I bought a house, and I've been decorating it

You have to keep people engaged until you get them through the next commercial. I'm not complaining about working in TV, at all, but just as an artistic reaction, I find myself being so drawn to moments of silence where things are allowed to breathe.

Television is all about sound. You'll never get a moment of silence unless there's something really extraordinary going on, on screen, visually. They never let a moment of silence pass without being filled in television because it's a very sound-driven medium.

I was a little bit wary of playing Nicholas. In the script, which I think is true of the novel and the film, he's the only character not singing and dancing in a musical style. Playing someone who is the personification of good is a little difficult.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide.

It's generally more fun playing the villain.

You go through this business and you meet people that you bond with, and you get to go make movies with them. It's wonderful. What I've always dreamt of, in my career, is to have a brotherhood of collaborators, and go in and out of working with them. I'm just starting to get that, and it's really lovely.

It's generally more fun playing the villain

I watch these actors who when you go to buy a pint of milk you see them smiling on the cover of 20 magazines. Then when you see them in a film it's hard to believe the character because you just see them everywhere.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide

I was a slightly melancholy child and I think films were a way of escaping for me.

Right before I got 'Sons of Anarchy,' I actually quit acting for 18 months and didn't read a single script, and I wrote a film. I felt like I needed to do something that I had control over, as an artist, and also just do something where I felt like I had some control over my life, as just a human, out in the world.

The truth of the matter is the real industry is in LA and the cream of the talent is there.

I don't just look at things as an actor. I've also written several films, so I look at it as a storyteller and I know if something worked and should have been in there for the benefit of the story and the benefit of the character.

So I try not to do press and if you can keep the balance of keeping a certain degree of anonymity and do interesting work then you can hope for a degree of career longevity

I'm usually the guy who knocks everyone out in order to get the girl.

I'm reading scripts, desperately wanting to work. I've set a couple of things up for next year

It's always difficult to really sum up exactly why a relationship works.

I watch these actors who when you go to buy a pint of milk you see them smiling on the cover of 20 magazines. Then when you see them in a film it's hard to believe the character because you just see them everywhere

The landscape of cinema is not original. Not to say there aren't great movies being made, but it's much easier for studios to make movies that have built-in audiences. So it's all remakes, adaptations, a lot of remakes of adaptations.

In the early part of your career you are always compared with somebody until you can stand on your own two feet

In a work capacity I'm only interested in acting and producing

I'm currently doing Undeclared an American TV show set in a college. It just got aired and got massive ratings so hopefully that'll screen in the UK soon

Good roles are hard to come by, and whether they're a few lines or a lead, you snap 'em up when they come along

There are definitely worse people to be compared with. I think Brad Pitt makes interesting decisions.

It's hard to smoke a pipe, and it's actually kind of brutal. It burns your mouth and your throat, and to keep it lit.

I have too many control issues, so it just is not good for me to go and watch a film, too soon after I make it.

Acting is never really effortless, at least not for me. It requires a massive amount of work. But, there's definitely an added level of having to just create the whole thing again, every time. It's also a very exciting thing, to do that.

My philosophy about the whole thing is that awards are like gifts: it's lovely to receive them, and it is very bad form to covet them.

I always think it's better to take a smaller role in a great film rather than a leading role in something that you don't have complete faith in.

Right before I got Sons of Anarchy, I actually quit acting for 18 months and didnt read a single script, and I wrote a film. I felt like I needed to do something that I had control over, as an artist, and also just do something where I felt like I had some control over my life, as just a human, out in the world.

To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own.

I find aspects of the industry tedious and hard to manage.

And I just want to work with good directors and good people.

They say that theater is the actor's medium, television is the writer's medium and film is the director's medium, and it's really true.

I realise few people get to live the life they always wanted, but I'm so neurotic, I don't really think about it. I'm too busy thinking, 'I hope I don't screw up my next scene.

Most people that work in [show] business, if they're not gypsies by nature, become gypsies, just because of the reality of this business.