When it comes to sex, Charlie Hunnam is a straight talker. He tells TV editor LOUISA CLEAVE all about it.
How do you know you're the hottest thing on TV? Some clues: you're 19, you dine with Madonna at her home and you turn down a major role on Dawson's Creek.
That's life for Charlie Hunnam, star of Queer As Folk, the much-raved-about television drama where the central characters are gay men.
Hunnam was just 18 when he was cast as 15-year-old schoolboy Nathan, who on his first outing is picked up by Stuart, a man twice his age.
The plotline caused moral outrage in Britain and even a few mumblings from our own Christian right when the series started on TV4 a month ago.
The coupling of Stuart and Nathan was seen by the moralists as an endorsement of under-age sex, while the gay community objected to some of the more graphic sex scenes being edited out.
When Hunnam first read the scripts he did not believe the series would be filmed, let alone attract a huge following.
"A lot of times the writers got carried away and were quite dramatic in their descriptions of what was going to happen and how it would happen, particularly with the sex, and I thought, 'That's not going to be filmed,'" he says by phone from his family home in north England.
"The only concern I had was that, career-wise, I'd never want to be typecast into that sort of role. But at the end of the day people are going to look at my performance overall."
Hunnam, who is straight, says it was difficult to "pull off an intimate scene" with other male actors. He says any love scene with an actor - male or female - is difficult but Queer As Folk "added a whole new level on top of that."
Hunnam does not feel it is his place to defend or endorse the messages in Queer As Folk. Because of his role he was asked to become involved in the recent debate about lowering the age of consent for homosexual sex in Britain and to address the House of Commons.
"Just because I've been on TV playing a 15-year-old, they thought I was going to be qualified to get involved in a debate of the highest level. I thought, 'This is stupid.'"
Like This Life, another recent British hit series, Queer As Folk was cut short by the its writer, Russell Davis, because he wanted to get out while the going was good.
It might have frustrated viewers, but Hunnam agrees with the move. "It's better to go out and be loved by everyone than keep going and slowly lose your audience."
Since Queer As Folk, Hunnam has spent time in Los Angeles meeting producers and directors. He has become the next big thing but is modest about his giddy ascent to stardom, and says that while it is "great meeting interesting people" he hates "all of that showbiz bollocks - it's the work that's important to me."
He turned down Dawson's Creek and another American television show to focus on films. His first is Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, which will be released in Britain next year. He is also making two American films, one titled The Lads.
If any proof is needed as to how hot Hunnam is, this is what famous American gossip columnist Liz Smith had to say about his appearance at a magazine launch in New York last year: "He's blond, great-looking and awfully shy. Nevertheless he was pawed and petted and questioned incessantly.
"He seemed overwhelmed but fascinated by this Hollywood-on-the-Hudson bash and downright stunned when Madonna herself rose up on her sprained ankle to compliment him on his work in Queer As Folk. This kid's hot."
Who: Charlie Hunnam
What: Queer As Folk
When: TV4, Wednesdays, 9.30 pm.
Hot to trot
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