When Charlie Hunnam was cast in “Sons of Anarchy,” he went the extra mile to prepare for his role by spending time with a real-life motorcycle gang. It was there that Hunnam met a 19-year-old biker with the nickname Chill Will. “I met him and spent four days with him and loved him and got to see what the real of this thing was,” the actor told Vanity Fair.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck immediately after Hunnam’s time with Will. “I had to come back and work with Kurt [Sutter], because we were about to start shooting the show,” Hunnam recalled. “Unfortunately, Will lost his life that day. I then felt this responsibility in a way to honor him through this character.” The actor said that he garnered criticism for how his character was different from typical bikers, such as Jax’s shoes being white sneakers instead of leather boots, but he felt these stylistic choices were important to accurately represent Will.
Chill Will may be the prime inspiration for Dax, but that’s not the only figure who influenced the character. In fact, the fictional biker was also modeled after the titular tragic lead of William Shakespeare’s seminal play “Hamlet.” “Because I wanted to set it present day, I knew [John Teller] would have to be represented by memories. A ghost of things past,” Sutter wrote in a now-deleted tweet (via PopCulture). “That’s when the Hamlet archetype fell into place. Jax was the Prince.”
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