‘Shantaram’: Charlie Hunnam Details His Fight in Return to TV (VIDEO)
Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam returns to TV as Lin Ford, an escaped Aussie convict on the run, looking for redemption in 1980s Bombay in Apple TV+’s Shantaram. In the drama, premiering Friday, October 14, Hunnam’s fugitive struggles to avoid trouble after prison but falls for an enigmatic woman.
Here, the actor previews the passion project ahead of the Shantaram series premiere, and shares what it was like to film during the pandemic. Plus, learn more about the series in the video interview with Hunnam and co-star Shubham Saraf, above.
Lin is a fugitive who, on the one hand, reinvents himself as a medic so he can give back to the impoverished community he lives in, but also falls for the criminally connected Karla (Antonia Desplat).
Charlie Hunnam: [He’s on a] collision course between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of gold. With Karla it’s non-reciprocated initially, but a dramatic, wonderfully romantic relationship blossoms. He gets tempted by the Bombay underworld.
With that temptation, can he remain free?
Incarceration, freedom, and what that meant to him is at the forefront of his new existence on the run. A recurring theme is we’re all in the process of constructing, and then trying to liberate ourselves from, the prisons we build in our lives.
You shot this in several locations, before and after COVID. Can we assume there were challenges?
It was incredibly difficult. We shot the pilot in India and Australia before COVID and then, because of [the Delta variant], we couldn’t go back to India [and had to reshoot]. In the midst of it all, I got a mosquito bite and dengue fever. Then I got an ear infection in both ears, and conjunctivitis. I’m hopeful that if the show gains traction and we do a second season, we’ll have an easier time!
Shantaram, Series Premiere, Friday, October 14, Apple TV+
