‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’: Charlie Hunnam Says It’s Unfair To Call Novel ‘Mommy Porn’

Remember when Charlie Hunnam was briefly cast as the eligible millionaire Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey? Then he quit and we got Jamie Dornan. Now, Hunnam is talking about leaving the production and what he really thinks about the adaptation.

It’s only a few days until the first official trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey, and we are hearing about the original Christian Grey, Charlie Hunnam. The Sons of Anarchy star is sharing how he really feels about the film that he almost starred in.

Hunnam talked about the film on Sunday, during a Television Critics Association press tour event. He said:

“I’m just really excited to see it. I was just really, really invested and wanted to work with (director) Sam (Taylor-Johnson) and play that character. I’m really, really curious.”

Fifty Shades of Grey had been dubbed “mommy porn,” because the erotic novel was popular with females, including young (and not so young) mothers. But Charlie Hunnam thinks the term is not fair to author E.L. James.

“I think people really do that book a disservice when they reduce it to that type of talk. What (E.L. James) actually created is a really sophisticated dynamic and presented it in a package which was accessible to people who normally would be terrified of that subject… Actually what she did was pretty brilliant.”

Even though things didn’t work out for the 34-year-old British actor and Fifty Shades of Grey, he said he is firmly behind the production and its stars, Dornan and Dakota Johnson, the latter of whom plays the innocent Anastasia Steele. Hunnam quit the production a month after it was announced that he had been chosen as the troubled billionaire.

Universal and Focus Features — who are producing the film — have stated that the actor’s busy television schedule prevented him from fully committing to Fifty Shades of Grey. Jamie Dornan was chosen a month after Charlie Hunnam announced he was quitting the production.

Hunnam said that being forced to drop out of Fifty Shades of Grey was “pretty heartbreaking” and he attributes his decision to his other commitments:

“I don’t think people have had unchaperoned access to me since all of this went on… the CliffsNotes were exactly what we said. I couldn’t do it because of (the) schedule. It was as simple as that.”

At some point, it was reported that Charlie Hunnam had dropped out of Fifty Shades of Grey due to the graphic nature of the story and his dislike for the incredible attention from fans and the press. The expected adaptation is scheduled to heat up theaters February 13, 2015.

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