Charlie Hunnam Says One Movie Taught Him to Stop Reading Reviews Forever

Charlie Hunnam has been acting for nearly three decades, but there’s one habit he dropped early on: reading reviews of his own work.

“I don’t read any of it. Not for years,” Hunnam said while speaking to Access Hollywood at the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday. “I learned that trick early in my career. I’ve been doing this for 27 years.”

The lesson came from a 2005 crime drama that later became a cult favorite: Green Street Hooligans. In the film, Hunnam starred alongside Elijah Wood and Claire Forlani, playing characters pulled into the violent underground world of English football hooliganism.

While audiences eventually embraced the movie, critics did not. “The critics were not particularly kind to me when that film came out,” Hunnam recalled. “And I said, ‘All right, okay. I don’t need to go through this again.’”

Directed by Lexi Alexander, the film struggled with reviewers but found strong support from viewers. On Rotten Tomatoes, critics gave it a low score, while audiences rated it much higher, showing a sharp divide between professional reviews and fan reaction.

Some of the criticism was blunt. The Detroit Free Press argued the movie failed to fully explore its subject, while a reviewer from ViewLondon described Hunnam’s performance as “utterly dreadful.”

Since then, Hunnam has avoided press coverage about his own work altogether — a decision that recently led to an unexpected surprise.

Because he doesn’t follow entertainment news closely, Hunnam didn’t even know he had been nominated for a Critics Choice Award this year. He earned a nomination for Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television for his role as real-life serial killer Ed Gein in Monster.

At the time the nominations were announced, Hunnam was staying at his ranch near Santa Barbara, mostly disconnected from his phone. When he finally checked it, he was alarmed.

“I had like 40-some missed calls and messages,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh no, something horrible has happened.’ Turns out something wonderful had happened.”

The award ultimately went to Stephen Graham for his performance in Adolescence, but for Hunnam, the nomination itself was enough — and proof that ignoring reviews hasn’t hurt his career after all.