Former Sons of Anarchy actor Charlie Hunnam has landed his next big movie role, starring in the upcoming drama, Jungleland.
According to Deadline, the film is about a bareknuckle boxer (Jack O’Connell) and his brother (Hunnam) who have to journey across the country for one final fight. Along the way, however, they are joined by an unexpected companion (Jessica Barden) who tests their brotherly bond.
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Jungleland is co-written and directed by Max Winkler — the son of iconic actor/director Henry Winkler — who is most well known for his work directing TV shows like New Girl, Casual, and The New Normal.
Most recently he co-wrote and directed the film Flower, which stars Zoey Deutch, Kathryn Hahn, Tim Heidecker, and Adam Scott.
Hunnam also put out a new film recently, titled Papillon, based on both the autobiography of real life safecracker Henri “Papillon” Charrière. It is also the original 1973 film adaptation of Papillon’s story which starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
In a recent interview with the Boston Herald, Hunnam opened up about the film and shared that he doesn’t think the story is necessarily timely, rather it’s a reflection of “a creative aspiration from the filmmaker to tell the story again.”
“That’s really I think the key ingredient to making something interesting, is just having a director with a really clear vision who is excited and passionate about telling the story, and then assembles his team of like-minded people,” Hunnam went on to say.
“One of the things that we had discussed a little bit that makes it a little bit relevant to this time is wanting to explore the modern state of the American prison system and how it’s all been privatized and monetized over the last 20 years,” the actor continued.
“Obviously French Guiana was, although not a privatized prison system, they had specifically sent those people out there to create an infrastructure in French Guiana to be able to make that place desirable for mass migration and immigration to that part of the world from mainland France,” Hunnam explained. “We thought that was something interesting that made it particularly culturally relevant right now, at least to an American audience.”
Regarding comparisons to the original film, Hunnam said that “the biggest single difference for” him “is a difference in sensibility of the filmmakers.”
“Michael [Noer, the director of Papillon] has a very modern sensibility. He comes from a documentary background and he has that hyper-real approach to filmmaking. His sensibility is very, very grounded and sort of true-life based. I think that’s the most singular difference for me.”
While fans will likely have to wait until next year or beyond to see Jungleland, Papillon is now playing in select theatres around the nation.
