BBC America(LOS ANGELES) — These days, Charlie Hunnam is perhaps best known for his role in the gritty Sons of Anarchy but, once upon a time, he was to star in the rom-com Forgetting Sarah Marshall. A main role in the Jason Segel movie was written specifically for him, but Hunnam turned it down. It wasn’t publicly known why he made this choice, until now.
Speaking with Collider, the English actor revealed why he chose to leave the project, which saw Russell Brand take his place as a lethario rock star.
“It’s funny, I’ll tell you a little story. Jason Segel wrote Forgetting Sarah Marshall for he and I to do together, and he wrote that [Russell Brand] role [of Aldous Snow] for me,” he said. “I went and I did the table read and it was very successful. Judd [Apatow] was producing.”
“I was in a dark night of the soul in my career, at that point, and felt as though I needed to seize the trajectory and that just wasn’t really aligning with, at that period of my life and career, what I wanted to be doing,” he continued. “Jason was one of my best friends, which is why he wrote the film for me, but I had to tell him, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m not gonna do this.’
The King Arthur star added, “It was one of those things where that wasn’t very well received by the inner circle of that production. I had to stand my ground and say, ‘Listen, it’s nothing personal. I’m just following my North star. I’m just in a weird spot and I’m trying to define for myself what the path forward is.'”
Hunnam also shared that he realized that he made the right decision to step away from the 2008 comedy after seeing Brand’s performance.
“…there’s no way I could have done it justice the way Russell Brand did,” Hunnam admitted.
In fact, Brand reprised the role of Aldous Snow in the 2010 comedy Get Him To The Greek.
By Danielle Long
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