Charlie Hunnam Is More Candid Than Ever About Dropping Out of Fifty Shades of Grey

Updated on 9/17/2015 at 3:30 PM

Since dropping out of Fifty Shades of Grey shortly after being cast as Christian Grey in the racy movie, Charlie Hunnam has remained adamant that his exit was due to scheduling issues. He's not changing his tune, but in the new issue of V Man, he opens up a lot more about that period of his life. The quotes are below, but be warned that there are some Sons of Anarchy spoilers!

Why dropping out was so horrible for him: "Oh it was the worst professional experience of my life. It was the most emotionally destructive and difficult thing that I've ever had to deal with professionally. It was heartbreaking."
On calling director Sam Taylor-Johnson to give her the news: "I called her and we both cried our eyes out on the phone for 20 minutes. I needed to tell her that this was not going to work. I was going to finish Sons, shoot the whole sequence where Tara was brutally murdered, fly to Vancouver the next day, have 10 days of rehearsal, and then start shooting. Then I was going to have three days after that and I'd have to start shooting Crimson Peak and then I'd have two days to travel and go back into season seven of Sons. There was a lot of personal stuff going on in my life that left me on real emotional shaky ground and mentally weak. I just got myself so f*cking overwhelmed and I was sort of having panic attacks about the whole thing. I just didn't know what to do."
Why it had nothing to do with Fifty Shades of Grey's sexual content: "The outside perception of that was that I got really cold feet and got scared of the explicit nature of the sexuality of the piece. When I was 18 I was getting f*cked in the ass, completely naked on national TV, y'know?"

In case you're wondering, that last quote refers to his stint on the UK's Queer as Folk, in which he was in a relationship with Littlefinger from Game of Thrones. Check out all the steamy pictures from his V Man shoot here!

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