English actor Charlie Hunnam, best known for playing Jackson Teller on FX series Sons of Anarchy for over a decade, will soon be seen on the Apple TV Plus series Shantaram in the lead role. The show is adapted from the book of the same name penned by Gregory David Roberts. The book, although fiction, is said to be influenced by the author’s own life.
Charlie, who has been promoting the series, recently spoke to Bollywood Hungama about making the series and how it came to life. “I was in Thailand when this book was thrust upon me by my friend and producer Eric Singer. So I didn’t get to see much of Thailand (the book is over 900 pages-long), but I fell in love with India. I read the book and fell madly in love with it, and then began the steep uphill climb of attaining the rights of the book.”
Charlie Hunnam also mentioned that although the book as well as the show is set in the 80s largely, Shantaram will still appeal to people. “The show to me feels really timeless, and there are little nods to fashion, set direction and stuff like that. It feels very alive and fresh to me, contemporary to me,” Hunnam concluded.
In an earlier interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Charlie Hunnam had revealed that he got severely ill while shooting for the Apple TV Plus show in Mumbai. “When I was in India, I got a bacterial gut infection, a viral gut infection, an acute respiratory infection. I had conjunctivitis in both eyes, an ear infection, and dengue fever from a mosquito bite,” Hunnam told THR.
The ten-episode series has been created by Eric Warren Singer and Steve Lightfoot. It will premiere on Apple TV Plus on October 14.
