The stories seen throughout the show are fictional, but the Charlie Hunnam Sons of Anarchy character took inspiration from a real-life biker that the actor met when preparing to play Jax Teller. He was the lead of Sons of Anarchy from beginning to end and went through a major journey that saw him go from SAMCRO’s hope to change their history and take them on a new path, to the man who almost destroyed the club he grew up in.
Jax’s tale isn’t based on a true story and takes many elements from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a confirmed inspiration for the show, but the Charlie Hunnam Sons of Anarchy character Jax was heavily based around a real biker he met in several other key ways. Speaking to The Huffington Post back in 2015, Hunnam was asked if he got to spend time with real motorcycle clubs, and he shared that he spent a lot of time with one particular club during the initial rehearsal period of Sons of Anarchy, where he met the real Jax Teller.
Hunnam Based Jax On A Young Oakland Biker With A Similarly Tragic Fate
Hunnam explained he went to Oakland before Sons of Anarchy season 1 started shooting and hung out with “a very well-known club that have a presence in Oakland,” enough for him to get the feel of what life as a member of a motorcycle club is all about. Once there, he met a 22-year-old member of the club who Hunnam says “was Jax Teller.” His dad was in the club, he had been in it his whole life as well, and he was “the heir apparent.” Hunnam went on to describe the unnamed biker as having “an amazing presence about him” and was like “an old school outlaw, cowboy” and gunslinger in the modern-day.
Unfortunately, the young biker also had a similar fate to Jax Teller’s, as according to Hunnam, he was killed the week after he left Oakland. Hunnam inherited his necklace, which he keeps as a memorial for him. The biker had such an impact on the actor that he based everything about Jax on him – from the jeans and shoes he wore to his mannerisms.
Jax as a person was based on a real-life biker from Oakland, but his journey was an original story with Shakespearean touches, and so it’s equal parts dark and interesting that Jax and his real-life counterpart ended up having the same fate, as Jax Teller arranged his death in the series finale. It’s hard to imagine how different Jax from Sons of Anarchy would have been had Hunnam not met that young biker, but that experience surely added a lot more realism and emotion to Jax.
SOA Cast Real Hells Angels In The Show To Add Authenticity
Not only was the Charlie Hunnam Sons of Anarchy character Jax Teller based on a real biker, but the series also cast several real-life members of the motorcycle club Hells Angels to preserve its authenticity. David Labrava, Rusty Coones, Chuck Zito, and Ralph “Sonny” Barger all featured in Sons of Anarchy playing roles of varying prominence over the show’s seven seasons. This is not only a fun detail about the show, but it also illustrates Sons of Anarchy‘s high level of commitment to depicting the lives of motorcycle club members as accurately as possible. Sons of Anarchy‘s Hells Angels casting and Charlie Hunnam’s tribute to the real-life Jax Teller he met are strong examples of this dedication to verisimilitude.
Jax From Sons Of Anarchy Wasn’t Just Inspired By Real Life Bikers
While many of the individual character traits of Jax Teller were based on a real person, his overall arc was based on a classic literary character, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Like Hamlet, Jax is heir to a kingdom (in this case the SAMCRO club) and comes to suspect that his stepfather killed his father, and is filled with doubt as to how he should respond. Thomas’s manifesto plays the role of Hamlet’s father’s ghost, alongside other Hamlet counterparts in Sons of Anarchy. Of course, there were also a lot of divergences from Shakespeare’s story, but ultimately Jax meets the same fate as Hamlet: getting his vengeance, but at the cost of many lives, including ultimately his own. Sons of Anarchy compellingly combined Shakespearean drama with real-life biker culture, including the man Jax is based on.
