By Cathy Anderson

After seven years of gun-running, murder, betrayal and shocking storylines, Sons of Anarchy is coming to an end.
But not so the brotherhood of actors who play the tough-guy bikie characters: they’ve become family in real life, too.
Set in the outlaw SAMCRO motorcycle club in California, FX’s unexpected hit drama is a remarkably violent world of drugs, turf wars and executions.
Club members are dedicated to the MC and loyal to each other — often until death.
But on the set of the series at the Occidental Studios in North Hollywood, the close bonds between the actors is palpable.
Kim Coates (who plays the deliciously perverted sergeant-at-arms Alex “Tig” Trager) does a tactile interview double-act with pal Tommy Flanagan (the tough Irish VP Filip “Chibs” Telford).
Coates slings his arm around Flanagan’s shoulders as he fields questions, and occasionally pats his knee.
When they leave our group of visiting journalists and pass Mark Boone Jr (Bobby Munson), Coates slaps Boone’s ample girth while Flanagan gives him a shoulder massage and kisses his fluffy head.

“Tommy and Boone are the two guys I’ve become really, really close with, like brothers, and the three of us always ride together.”

Later, we hear Katey Sagal call people “sweetheart” in the same affectionate vein as her character, club matriarch Gemma Teller; Theo Rossi (Juan Carlos “Juice” Ortiz) shares a few hugs en route to us; and star Charlie Hunnam (Jax Teller) wanders in calling a few guys “brother”.
Hunnam says the show has been the “greatest experience of my life” but what he’ll miss most after this final season are his Sons bros.
“We ride to work together, most of us, and we hang out a lot, and it’s that aspect of the club life and the camaraderie has become a central dynamic between the guys who play these characters,” he says.
“Tommy and Boone are the two guys I’ve become really, really close with, like brothers, and the three of us always ride together.”
Most of the actors are quick to separate themselves from real-life MC members, who are fans and extras in the show, but Hunnam reveals Jax’s aesthetic and personality are modelled on a young biker he met who had grown up in an MC.
“He was an old-school outlaw cowboy fucking bad-ass gun slinger, but a modern-day 22-year-old fearless kid,” Hunnam explains.
“Everyone used to say he put his gun in his belt before he put his shoes on.”

“I think that as the world gets more and more gentrified and the thumb of Big Brother comes down on us more, there is an escape fantasy that people really enjoy.”

The biker was killed before they started filming season one, and the bullet necklace that Hunnam wears in the show is a tribute to him.
That biker had 22 birthdays in his clubhouse, and his story encapsulates what Sons really is amid the bloody battles and gang warfare — a drama about families.
But Hunnam reckons the show digs even a little deeper than that.
He says creator and writer Kurt Sutter (who plays imprisoned biker Otto Delaney, and in real life is married to Sagal) has tapped into viewers’ subconscious anarchist streak.
“I think that as the world gets more and more gentrified and the thumb of Big Brother comes down on us more, there is an escape fantasy that people really enjoy — watching dudes who live on their own set of rules and do whatever the fuck they want and fuck the consequences and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it,” Hunnam says.
They may seem like TV tough guys, but Flanagan says the show’s chaos can be quite overwhelming for the actors.
“When you’re actually doing it and you know that it’s fantasy land and you see all the props and bullshit that goes to make these things look so bad, it doesn’t really hit home; but once you sit back and actually watch it after a few months, it’s like, ‘fuck me, really? We did that?’” he tells mX.

“It’s fucking terrifying … We are all anti-violent people and I hate it, but this show, man, it’s got a hook in it.”

His buddy Coates agrees.
“It’s terrifying, it’s fucking terrifying,” he says. “You have to be careful what you say, because we are all anti-violent people and I hate it, but this show, man, it’s got a hook in it.”
The shocking season six finale with the brutal final confrontation between Gemma and Jax’s wife Tara (Maggie Siff) and subsequent cover-up by Juice was a twist no one really saw coming — a nod to Sutter’s penchant for a high character kill count and Shakespearean tragedy.
“It was one of those Kurt moments,” Rossi says. “To me there are certain memorable things that happen on the show and they change everything. Losing Opie (Ryan Hurst) was a big moment.
“The Gemma rape in season two is the moment I believe put us where we are now. And now people don’t believe someone like Tara could leave the show, especially that way. Because now what does this do? It’s compelling stuff.”
Hunnam says in season seven Jax will be a man without a moral compass, and anything could happen.
“He had these two kind of guiding stars of Tara and his father,” Hunnam says.
“And the idea of saying goodbye to all ambition or desire to do something with your life or to be a good person and just say fuck it, the gloves are coming off — this is who I am, this is what I’m gonna do, I think it’s kind of liberating.”

This article originally appeared in mX newspaper