Charlie Hunnam names the greatest album ever recorded: “A true piece of art”
Charlie Hunnam might not be the first name that springs to mind when you think of great British actors, but over the last 20 years he has carved out an impressive career, especially in the US and his recent Golden Globe nomination for the Netflix serial killer hit Monster: The Ed Gein Story shows he may well be doing his best ever work at the moment.
The Newcastle-born actor is probably best known over the sea for his seven seasons of the FX biker drama Sons of Anarchy, but he also had a superb turn as an enforcer in the Guy Ritchie movie The Gentlemen with Matthew McConaughey and took the lead in another Ritchie production a couple of years previously, the much-maligned King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
While his early days on screen were a bit of a mixed bag (enjoy a contender for worst movie accent of all time thanks to his ‘cockney’ in hooligan flick Green Street) he did well enough to land a massive (literally) movie with Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim in 2013 alongside Idris Elba, and the following year landed his part in Sons of Anarchy, which was one of the most popular shows of the period.
Recently, though, it has been his performance as Ed Gein in Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology that has brought him all the plaudits and attention, a psychologically challenging role that he said he would prepare for filming by listening to soothing classical music, including the score for Chinese weepy In the Mood for Love by Michael Galasso.
While his musical tastes are varied, and he’s been known to enjoy some punk rock, it’s a seminal late 1960s album that he picks out as his favourite of all time. He told Man About Town, “The most meaningful album for me would be Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. It’s just such a beautiful album, full of longing and nostalgia and makes me feel nostalgic for a time that I didn’t even know.”
Astral Weeks was released in 1968 and was a brave departure for Van Morrison, who had previously released commercial hits like ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ and served as the frontman for Belfast band Them. Aged just 22, he put together an astonishing blend of folk, jazz and blues and opened the LP with the title track, a repeating, seven-minute song about spiritual rebirth and featuring stream of consciousness lyrics.
Hunnam added, “I found that album when I was probably 16 or 17, and it just struck me as a true piece of art. I’ve actually gone through and read all of the lyrics of the songs, and they’re deceptively simple, seemingly not really about that much and then when you hear them performed, they’re just about love and longing and a sense of belonging in the world.”
Astral Weeks was not an immediate hit; Van Morrison’s label was reluctant to promote it, citing a lack of radio hits, and initial reviews on both sides of the Atlantic were poor. But gradually, as word of mouth spread, it became viewed as an essential purchase.
Hunnam, meanwhile, has finished filming a new TV show alongside Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke called Criminal, which will be released in 2026, and will also appear in an action thriller called Legacy of Spies with Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen.
