While diehard fans probably know quite a bit of Sons of Anarchy trivia,
there are still untold truths about the show that are definitely worth discovering.
For fans and anyone else interested, here are more facts that you may not know about the show.
In the show's first season, Charlie Hunnam's Jax Teller is introduced
as struggling with the pressures of being the heir apparent of SAMCRO,
AKA the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original. It's something made all
the worse for the kid when he stumbles across some writings by his late father which confirm
Jax's suspicions that the club has become the opposite of what was originally envisioned.
"Hey. You want me to be your number two,
protect this club? Then I gotta know where you're takin' us, otherwise there's no trust."
In a 2008 interview, showrunner Kurt Sutter confirmed this comes
directly from the history of the Hells Angels.
But to really drill into the tensions of such a club for seven pulpy seasons,
Sutter also focused on how motorcycle clubs represent
certain American values while aggressively rebelling against the establishment.
Of course, while they claim to be rebels, they're not exactly free. As Sutter told The Verge -
"[Motorcycle clubs] say they're all about 'ride free' and 'f--- the establishment, but within
the structure of these outlaw clubs, there are more rules and regulations than you or I have."
By now the idea of the show being based on Hamlet has become an ingrained part
of Sons of Anarchy's mythology, but it isn't exactly correct.
Instead, the play was used to inform Jax's character and follow his journey into manhood.
However, Sutter has also revealed that Hamlet served as a tonal reference point for the show's
dramatic arcs, with the play's themes often overlapping with those of Sons of Anarchy.
Though the showrunner has admitted he cringes somewhat when the Shakespearan overtones are
referenced by fans, they're also difficult to avoid in a show where bodies litter virtually
every episode, and where manipulation, deception, and hierarchy reign supreme.
If Charlie Hunnam's performance as the pretty-boy-you-don't-wanna-mess-with
biker came across as more authentic than anyone expected, it's probably because
the actor based Jax on the 22 year-old heir apparent of an Oakland based motorcycle club.
Hunnam spent a lot of time researching his role and fessed up to The Huffington
Post that he got to know bikers and club members really well. It's there that the
actor met the young biker who would inform the complex and tragic character of Jax,
right down to the aesthetics, including the character's clean white kicks and blue jeans.
Hunnam said the guy was perfect for the character. As the actor explained,
"His dad was in the club and had been in the club his whole life.
And he was 22. He had 22 birthday parties in the Oakland clubhouse of this motorcycle club.
He was the heir apparent, like the history and future of that club."
But it came at a cost. The biker who served as inspiration for Jax was
killed the week after Hunnam left Oakland, right before the show started shooting. The
actor still has a necklace from that time which he wears as a memorial.
With such a commitment to the role,
it's no surprise Hunnam got so deep in character that he struggled to leave Jax on set. The British
actor revealed to GQ that he put everything he had into the show. That includes dressing primarily in
plaid and, oh yes, acting like a legit biker on and off the screen, with Hunnam saying -
"I lived it as much as I could. I never got in a car the whole seven years. I was only on my
bike and rolling around with a bunch of real bikers and occasionally acting like a maniac."
The line between character and actor was so blurred that Hunnam even rode a Harley Dyna,
the same bike as Jax. It likely didn't help him
to shake off that SAMCRO scuzz when he went home at the end of the day.
It also made saying goodbye to the character intensely difficult for Hunnam,
who compared it to feeling, quote, "like a genuine bereavement."
Speaking to Glamour about the emotional process,
he admitted to returning to the set after the show had wrapped, saying -
"I'd just walk around at night because I wanted to
be in that environment and go through a personal process of saying goodbye."
One of SAMCRO's most interesting and beloved members is Happy,
the ironically named sergeant-at-arms of the motorcycle club who loves killing so
much that he tattoos a smiley face on himself for every life he snuffs
out. And the actor behind the character is about as legit as they come on the show.
"I'm bringing to the performance my own personal life experience.
On some level I've either seen it happen or lived it."
David Labrava is a former member of the Hell's Angels who was originally
brought on to be a technical advisor. However, the guy is more than just a
biker. When Kurt Sutter visited the Oakland chapter of which Labrava was a member,
he jumped at the opportunity to show off his creative flair to the showrunner.
Speaking to Collider, Labrava said -
"I showed him that I wrote scripts, and I asked him to let me have a chance, when he cast the
show. I got cast on the show, and then he gave me a real chance to write, and here I am."
As well as depicting the trigger-happy biker,
Labrava also wrote the tenth episode of the fourth season, "Hands."
Throughout the show's run, Sutter filled the series with fun, unusual cameos,
usually featuring celebrities playing against type. Season two notoriously
starred anti-fascist punk musician Henry Rollins as a violent neo-Nazi. Season seven
featured the infinitely badass Courtney Love as a sweet-natured pre-K school teacher. Meanwhile
wholesome High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale depicted a high-class escort in season five.
Sutter clearly had great fun with these playful guest appearances,
which were as surprising as they were oddly fitting for the celebrity involved.
Where else could you possibly find David Hasselhoff playing a retired adult movie star
or revered horror master Stephen King playing a "cleaner" of dead bodies?
Considering what a gargantuan presence
he brought to the show as slick SAMCRO president Clay Morrow, it may seem utterly inconceivable
that Sons of Anarchy could ever exist without Ron Perlman. But unbelievable though it may be,
the original pilot actually starred iconic character actor Scott Glenn in the role.
Speaking to The A.V. Club about his brief Sons of Anarchy experience,
Glenn actually sounded relieved that he was fired from the show. The way that Glenn tells it,
he found out that FX was going ahead with the series but without him in the role, and said -
"It was ultimately probably one of the better things that could've happened to me."
Enter Perlman, who gave NPR his own side of the story. Revealing that although
he's a fan of Glenn's work, the actor divulged about Glenn's performance that,
quote, "the network decided that they weren't getting what they were hoping."
This required Perlman to take on the role with hardly any prep time, which might explain why he
never exactly became accustomed with riding a hog the way his fellow Sons of Anarchy co-stars did.
"When I would start the bike, and I would get ready to pull out at the end of a shot you know,
after all the dialogue was over people would go 'Cut Cut Cut!'"
Eager but often mocked, Half-Sack was a fan–favorite for the two seasons that
the character managed to survive on Sons of Anarchy, and he likely would've lasted even
longer had actor Johnny Lewis not asked Sutter to cut his time short, with Sutter explaining -
"Johnny wasn't happy on the show. Creatively, he really wanted out of his contract."
Just a couple of years after leaving the series, the 28-year-old was found dead in
a driveway in Los Angeles after allegedly beating his 81-year-old landlady to death.
The actor was reportedly struggling with severe mental health issues at the time.
Sutter published a blog post responding to the actor's death,
in which he admitted that he unfortunately wasn't surprised by the events, and called it -
"A tragic end for an extremely talented guy, who had unfortunately lost his way."
Suffice to say, fans were utterly devastated when Jax's ride-or-die besite,
Opie, was horrifically killed at the start of season five. And it seems that the cast
and crew of the show were hurting just as much as fans over the lovable character's demise.
To help actor Ryan Hurst and the rest of the cast properly say goodbye to the character, Hunnam
bought his friend and co-star a samurai sword and encouraged him to use it to remove his beard.
As Hunnam tells it, the actor hadn't shaved for the three months since he'd left the show.
In fact, he hadn't shaved once since landing the role of Opie,
which had been over five years prior. Hunnam explained -
"It was a catharsis that we all needed for him
to get rid of that beard and for all of us to just let Opie die."
Cue a supremely emotional video of the symbolic beard-cutting, in which Hurst,
Hunnam, and Mark Boone Junior absolutely sob as they take turns lopping off Hurst's beard
before watching the remainder be shaved off his face. See? They're big softies at heart, really.
Let's face it. Wearing a whole lot of leather is one of the least appealing
options no matter the weather. So to have to wear such a challenging costume during
long work days on set in 100 degree heat? Yeah, it's less than ideal.
However, that's exactly the environment that the Sons of Anarchy cast and crew found themselves in
while filming the show. As Kim Coates told Entertainment Weekly during a set visit -
"We used to call it doing 'the timber.' We'd lose
a crew member a week from passing out. Boom. Gone."
Tommy Flanagan, who plays Chibs on the show,
was once in such bad shape from the heat that he was even sent to hospital for an IV.
Super-fans of Sons of Anarchy had the final episode of their favorite show spoiled due to a
stupid, throwaway mistake. The snafu was because of the release of a Sons of Anarchy guide book
that was immediately sent out to fans who'd pre-ordered it. The book arrived just before the
final episode, and it basically screamed sensitive plot points in the faces of unprepared fans.
Kurt Sutter was understandably livid about the mistake. Despite adding that there were many
different people he could blame for the book being delivered far too early, he also decided
to shoulder the brunt of the blame for coming up with the idea for the book in the first place.
Sutter apologized profusely, and also urged people not to ruin the ending for others.
Creator and showrunner Kurt Sutter built a bit of a reputation as a blunt-talking maverick
during his days working on Shawn Ryan's The Shield.
Sutter's reaction to criticisms of the show's third season, which saw the club head to Ireland,
could politely be described as vitriolic. He later called out
specific critics who reviewed each episode in another fiery post on his own blog.
After Sutter's first post-Sons show, The Bastard Executioner, failed to find an audience and
was canceled, he wound up returning to the world of the Sons with Mayans M.C.,
a spinoff he co-created Elgin James set three years after the events of Sons.
Mayans M.C. deals with an offshoot of the Mayans,
who were depicted in Sons of Anarchy as antagonists and then allies of Charlie
Hunnam's Jax Teller. The spinoff deals with JD Pardo's EZ and his struggles,
with the Mayans having a different structure and culture than the Sons. To make the voices
authentic, Sutter was committed to hiring people of color, telling the Hollywood Reporter -
"I didn't think that it made creative sense to be the sole
voice of a show that takes place in an entirely different culture."
That attitude probably led to Sutter being fired from his own co-creation.
Sutter says Fox's parent company, Disney, disliked an off-color joke he wrote about Walt Disney,
an issue he believes he compounded by writing more jokes. However,
the apparent reason for his ouster stemmed from complaints about his behavior.
Sutter moved on and will direct his feature film debut, Blumhouse's This Beast.
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