Charlie Hunnam covers the December issue of Men’s Health. The dusty, motorcycle-y part of the photoshoot is boring and sort of Brad Pitt-esque (hasn’t Brad done those photos a million times?), but the white-wall photos are great. Charlie does have an amazing body, and much like Brad Pitt’s famous abs, I’m guessing that a lot of dudes tell their trainers “I want Charlie Hunnam’s body.” So, Charlie is an obvious choice for the cover of a men’s health magazine. In the interview, Charlie talks about working on the last season of Sons of Anarchy, plus the importance he places on physical exertion.

How he feels after completing a film or TV show: “There’s a brutal reintroduction back into your regular life, which has been completely f**king neglected for six months. I imagine with Sons…that’s going to be exacerbated tenfold. I can feel weird and lost – I’m prone to it. I wanted to avoid falling into a dark pit of existential crisis this time, so over the last 18 months I’ve been setting up some projects. I felt working through the transition was the healthiest way to deal with it.’

He works out to feel better mentally: “I get more out of fitness mentally than I do physically. It’s like an oil change. Your body is mostly water and it gets dirty, you know? You have to clear the dirty water otherwise it’ll corrupt everything; your thoughts, emotional process and body. I get addicted to the endorphin release of working out – my whole physiology relies on that. If I get injured or I don’t have time, I’ll start to feel cloudy, then depressed.’

Why he likes to bulk up: “I can’t take my shirt off and just be skinny. When you see a guy beating up people and being a general badass, you assume he’s going to look pretty formidable.”

[From The Daily Mail]

I agree with him – I started working out regularly (three to four times a week, lots of cardio & weight training) about four years ago and not only have I lost weight and toned up, but I just feel better mentally. And when I don’t get my workouts in, I feel like hell, mentally and physically. Of course, my gym-going coincided with my radical cut-down on alcohol-drinking too – I only do the odd glass of wine here and there. That’s helped me feel loads better too.

Oh, and Charlie is going to be working out even harder now – he just signed on to A Prayer Before Dawn, a true story of Billy Moore, who was a prisoner at the Klong Prem prison in Thailand. Moore studied Muay Thai boxing, so Hunnam is going to be in crazy-shape.

Photos courtesy of Men’s Health.