15 Things You Didn't Know About Sons Of Anarchy

Diehard Sons of Anarchy fans probably already know quite a bit of trivia about FX's crime drama, like how Katey Sagal, the actress who plays Gemma Teller Morrow, is married to the show's creator, Kurt Sutter. But the much-cherished operatic biker series has far more hidden depths and details that fans might not know about.

Airing from 2008 until 2014, the show ran for seven gloriously bloody seasons until it reached its natural and satisfying conclusion. And in the unpredictable, thrilling journey between the start and end of Sons of Anarchy, there are countless fascinating anecdotes that paint a full portrait of how the show came to be, the people who brought it to life, and how it came to end. 

Both on and off set, Sons of Anarchy was a show full of tight brotherly bonds and unexpected jolts of tragedy, and the series has plenty of untold truths that are definitely worth discovering.

Warning! Spoilers ahead!

In the show's first season, Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) is introduced as struggling with the pressures of being the heir apparent of SAMCRO (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 (and club founder) which confirm Jax's suspicions that the club has become the opposite of what was originally envisioned. 

In a 2008 interview, showrunner Kurt Sutter confirmed this comes directly from the history of the Hell's Angels. "They went from being this fun-loving fraternity to pretty much an organized-crime syndicate," Sutter said. " I thought, 'What if that first guy who put the jacket on his back and said, 'Hey, let's go out, have a few beers and start some trouble,' how would that guy feel about what the club eventually became?"

And thus, Sons of Anarchy was born. But to really drill into the tensions of such a club for seven pulpy seasons, Sutter also took inspiration from "the irony of motorcycle clubs," meaning how they represent certain American values ("we take care of our own") while aggressively rebelling against "the man." Of course, while they claim to be rebels, they're not exactly free. "[Motorcycle clubs] say they're all about 'ride free' and 'f*** the establishment,'" Sutter told The Verge. "But within the structure of these outlaw clubs, there are more rules and regulations than you or I have."

By now the whole "based on Hamlet" thing has become an ingrained part of Sons of Anarchy's mythology, but it isn't exactly correct. As Sutter once told Collider, "It's not like we have the play up on a board, with plot points that we try to follow." Instead, the play was used to inform "the journey of Jax's character" as "a guy coming into his manhood." In other words, he's a dude who finds himself at odds with the way his stepfather is running his birthright towards a dark direction he doesn't agree with. 

However, Sutter has also revealed that Hamlet served as a tonal reference point for the "operatic nature and pulpiness of the show," with the play's themes often overlapping with those of Sons of Anarchy. Though the showrunner has admitted he cringes "a little bit sometimes when people reference all the Shakespearan overtones," they're also difficult to avoid in a show where bodies litter virtually every episode and where manipulation, deception, and hierarchy reign supreme.

For example, speaking about Tara's shocking death in season six — something he'd planned "for a few seasons" — Sutter told The Hollywood Reporter he knew he "wanted Tara's death to feel like straight-up Shakespearan tragedy." It's a tone he appeared to stick with all the way through Jax's tragic end in the show's finale.

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 an enormous amount of time in that world of bikers and clubs and rallies," and fessed up to The Huffington Post that he "got to know some people 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.

Describing him as an "old school outlaw, cowboy ... badass gunslinger" for the modern day, Hunnam said the guy was "prototypically 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 that show". That includes dressing primarily in plaid and, oh yes, acting like a legit biker on and off the screen. 

"I lived it as much as I could," Hunnam said. "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. Hunnam attributes his choice in motorcycles to the fact that the Dyna is simply "the best bike that Harley makes" rather some method decision. But 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 "like a genuine bereavement."  Speaking to Glamour about the emotional process, he admitted to returning to the set after the show had wrapped. "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.

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? 

It's also worth noting that while Sons of Anarchy featured a rogue's gallery of cultish guest stars, it also featured an admirable set of adult movie stars who popped up for some of the show's more risque moments. Jenna Jameson, Puma Suede, and Daisy Marie are among the many adult performer guest stars seen in the show. 

Sutter told LA Weekly that the casting of these stars was a necessity, not a gimmick, "Often in Sons of Anarchy, sex and violence were interwoven in scenes. We needed players who were comfortable enough with the nudity to be able to react to someone's head getting blown off. ... We found that adult talent was the best choice."

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 a show that ran for so long and that would take "a break every 15 minutes to try and sell you Tylenol." The way that Glenn tells it, he found out that FX was going ahead with the series but without him in the role. "It was ultimately probably one of the better things that could've happened to me," Glenn said.

Enter Perlman, who gave NPR his own side of the story. Revealing that he's "a huge fan" of Glenn, the actor divulged that "the network decided that they weren't getting what they were hoping" from his performance. Instead they wanted "a more operatic version" of Morrow, full of "higher highs and lower lows." This required Perlman to take on the role with hardly any prep time, which might explain why he never exactly became too accustomed with riding a hog the way his fellow Sons of Anarchy co-stars did.

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. "Johnny wasn't happy on the show," Sutter explained at the time. "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 called it "a tragic end for an extremely talented guy, who had unfortunately lost his way."

"I wish I could say that I was shocked by the events last night, but I was not," Sutter said. "I am deeply sorry that an innocent life had to be thrown into his destructive path." Investigators said the actor died after climbing atop his landlady's home and either jumping or falling to the ground.

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 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. "It has some significance," Hunnam told The Hollywood Reporter, "because that's what a samurai would do at the end of their career; they would take their sword and cut their topknot off to signify the end of their life as a warrior."

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 ago at this point. "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," Hunnam explained.

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. 

According to first assistant prop master Brandon Boyle, there was a great amount of thought put into what pistol each character is packing. That means that old guard of the club, Bobby Munson, is rocking a classic Smith and Wesson 459 9mm, while the kill-crazy Happy opts for the nimble and high performance Glock 17 9mm. 

The aesthetically pleasing Ruger SR9 9mm is the weapon of choice of the charismatic Tig, while Jax — representing a new generation of bikers fighting to lead the club in a new direction — has the military grade Springfield Bureau Model .45 caliber, a weapon truly fit for a man at war. 

On set, the actors handled real guns firing blanks, and they used replicas for scenes where a weapon needed to be hurled at an enemy. "That way, it doesn't damage the gun," Boyle explained. Meanwhile, rubber guns were used for scenes where characters are "gonna crack somebody across the head." In other words, characters' weapons were key to the show, and they spent a lot of time in getting those guns right.

Let's face it. Wearing a whole lot of leather is one of the least appealing sartorial 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. "We used to call it doing 'the timber,'" Kim Coates told Entertainment Weekly during a set visit. "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.

Suffice it to say, the team used to search out ways to keep as cool as possible between takes, with Hunnam even taking to drinking a unique, replenishing tonic recommended to him by a yoga instructor. It was something Hunnam described as being "untreated, unheated ocean water from some f****** kelp forest somewhere." Err, sounds delicious?

In such stridently anti-spoiler times as these, spare a thought for the poor super-fans of Sons of Anarchy who had the final episode of their favorite show spoiled due to a stupid, throwaway mistake. The snafu was thanks to 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, calling it "a storytellers worst nightmare." Despite adding that "there are a thousand f****** people I can blame" for Sons Of Anarchy: The Official Collector's Edition 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.

"I ask that you not share your wrath or pain or opinion in social media so as to not spoil the experience of others," he said. "There is no excuse for utter ineptitude. It pains me that this will be the parting memory of some fans. I hope you all tune in for the finale. It plays much better than it reads." And how. 

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. Writer Myles McNutt notes that "the brash masculinity of Sutter's online persona is heavily echoed within the series itself" in one of several pieces he penned about Sutter's online presence in 2010.

Sutter's reaction to criticisms of the show's third season, which saw the club head to Ireland, could politely be described as vitriolic (and not at all safe for work). He later called out specific critics who reviewed each episode in another fiery post on his own blog.

Sutter also posted some of his scathing remarks against critics to Twitter, though he took one, the Wrap's Tim Molloy, off his "list." As Sutter's feuds played out in 120-character increments, his blasts hit too many targets, and in 2011, he quit the platform. He has since returned.

McNutt further chronicled what he called "Kurt Sutter's War on (Some) Critics," writing that he felt Sutter's Twitter musings were "a logical extension of the kind of renegade spirit which defines [Sons of Anarchy] and Sutter's personal approach to both storytelling and showrunning." McNutt returned to the same topic in 2012, noting that though Sutter could have addressed a general argument about episodic reviews, he instead "chose to make it a specific, personal one."

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 a spinoff he co-created with Elgin James, Mayans M.C., which airs via Fox's FX arm. The show is set three years after the events of SoA, and Sutter has also said that he would like to do a limited series Sons of Anarchy prequel. 

Mayans M.C. deals with an offshoot of the Mayans, who were depicted in SoA 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 hierarchical structure and culture than the Sons. To make the voices authentic, Sutter was committed to hiring POC, 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." Sutter was the only non-POC in the writer's room. Sutter also says he's "clearly am not a guy that gives a **** about being politically correct." 

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 to direct his feature film debut, Blumhouse's This Beast.

Sons of Anarchy fans are a dedicated bunch. After the series finale aired, many went back to the first season to point out everything they believed foreshadowed the show's ending. They enthusiastically respond to Kurt Sutter's tweets as well.

But some fans are extra dedicated, attending SoA's Sunday panels at San Diego Comic-Con during the show's run and waiting for their chance to ask questions of the attending cast and creatives. The panels were frequently punctuated with funny banter from the panelists. In 2012, the Hollywood Reporter noted that after a profane joke from Sutter, "[t]he rest of the panel continued in that lively spirit." 

During the final lively SDCC event in 2014, two fans took their love of the show a little too far. As reported by Digital Spy during its liveblog of the proceedings, the two separately propositioned the panelists. One, dressed as Winnie the Pooh, wanted to have some alone time with Katey Sagal and Theo Rossi together, and another wanted that alone time with the entire cast. The questions were expertly handled by the panelists, causing a great deal of laughter from the audience.

Given that Sundays at SDCC are traditionally Kids Day, a fan dressed as a Disney bear is not unusual. What he said was definitely not child-friendly, though it's not the first time a cosplaying fan violated Sunday protocol, as this not-safe-for-work exchange from Goku to Patrick Stewart in 2011 shows.