Credit: Ben King/Apple TV+Marking his first return to television since Sons of Anarchy, Charlie Hunnam dazzles as the morally ambivalent, charismatic antihero Lindsay Ford in Apple TV+’s new series Shantaram, which follows an Australian paramedic-in-training who gets arrested for a string of armed robberies, the last of which goes very badly.
The series begins with his escape from prison and subsequent immigration to India, where he finds himself caught up in the criminal underbelly of Bombay after a chance encounter with the beautiful Karla (Antonia Desplat) and her eclectic assortment of expats. A story about exile and the power of redemption, Shantaram — which means “man of God’s peace” in Hindi — is based on the 2003 bestseller of the same name, a 936-page novel about an Australian convict who escapes to India and establishes a free medical clinic while working his way through the criminal underbelly of Bombay in the 1980s.
The novel that inspires the show is partially based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts, who wrote the fictionalized version of the 10 years he spent as a fugitive when he was back in prison, serving the remainder of his sentence after being captured in Germany.
The journey into making Shantaram a series took almost as long as the living and writing of it; Hunnam was so moved by the story, which he read while on vacation in the early 2000s, that he immediately wished to produce it, but for years, the rights belonged to Warner Bros. with Johnny Depp attached as the lead. The project stalled due to the writers strike, then was revived by Depp through his production company. After failing to produce the film adaptation, perhaps because the length of the story is merely too long for such a short medium, Paramount scooped up the rights during a bidding war, attaching Hunnam as a producer first and then the lead actor, with The Punisher’s Steve Lightfoot as showrunner and Bharat Nalluri as one of the directors.
While filming in India, Hunnam contracted several illnesses, including conjunctivitis in both eyes and dengue fever, as well as both a viral and bacterial gut infection, but still said he had an incredible time with the project, claiming in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “All of the things [Shantaram] surfaced are the same things that I found compelling to investigate in my own life.” Hunnam’s connection to Lindsay and his inner demons is clear in his portrayal of him, and it’s what makes the series excel.
Here’s a sneak peek from the sixth episode of Shantaram, premiering globally this Friday, Nov. 4, on Apple TV+, in which Kavita (Sujaya Dasgupta) gets closer to discovering the truth about Lin (Hunnam), Modena (Elham Ehsas) ignores Lisa’s (Elektra Kilbey) warnings about Maurizio (Luke Pasqualino), and Lin and Vikram (Shiv Palekar) attempt to save Didier (Vincent Perez).
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