In 'Anarchy,' Rollins Is 'Not the Kind of Bad Guy You Root For'

Can you tell me a little bit about your role in 'Sons of Anarchy'?

Yeah, I'm a white supremacist, I have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, besides that I like my kids. Past that, I'm not the kind of 'bad guy' you root for... at all... He's not an emotional person so it's not like he has to hug and cry a lot. Um, he kind of just takes his orders and goes and does his thing. And so it's a very tight ship my face keeps. You know? And that's why you'll see me in parts like that, because I can deliver that.

Were you a fan of the show before taking on the role?

I was a huge fan of the show and of Kurt Sutter, the director... I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway. So, it's rare for someone to say to me "Hey, we want to put you in this, what do you think?" ... My manager says "Hey, Kurt Sutter wants to talk to you", which is kind of a mind blowing idea. So I said "Well, damn... ok, twist my arm." And so I went for the meeting, he asked if I knew what they were doing there. I said "Yeah, I know you, I love the show", he says "Great, here's what we're thinking about and want to gauge your interest." So he told me about that part, "Yeah! That's interesting."... I leapt at the chance to be in the show and would have even been happy with a smaller part, I would have been happy just to work on it for a day, so I feel I'm just really lucky.

What about the other cast members?

Well, when you really get to work with these people, like Charlie Hunnam, our lead guy. Charlie has an astonishing amount of talent and besides that, a great amount of charisma. He just has a real natural presence, it's great to watch. We all went to a big theater the other night to watch episode one. And I mean, he's really got a great thing. And I did some intense scenes yesterday with him and Ryan Hearst. Ryan is a guy named 'Opie' in the cast. And he is just one HEAVY guy, he is a serious actor and it's, he's a wonderful guy, but when he's in character he hits like a Mack truck. It's really something, the guy is like burning, ya know? And being around that is really, really inspirational. It makes you better, it makes you have to reach up and pull for it

What other roles could you see yourself in besides the typical antagonist role?

Oh, not a great deal more, I mean, comedy is really hard for me. If you've ever tried to be funny in a film or funny in a scene with people you wonder how anyone does it. At least for me it makes me admire that kind of talent even more, because it's just impossible for me. So I don't see me getting offered or being able to do much more then anything you've ever seen me do. I just don't think I have it. I've seen people who do, and that's a marvelous thing, but I don't think that's me. But, I am willing to try. If you someone said "we like you for this, lets sit here for a minute and work on it," I'm all for it, I just don't see that happening.

In your book 'Broken Summers,' you detail your touring efforts to aid the accused in the "West Memphis Three" trial, any plans of another giant goodwill effort?

[Laughs] well nothing that epic, I mean, that was a huge undertaking, so the answer to that is no. But I'm always kind of dabbling in this or that. Last summer I shot a documentary that I co-financed and it's about hunger, which I narrated, it's not my script but I narrated. The guy on camera behind me films everything from people starving to people at hot dog eating contests. We got a lot of the footage from the "World Food Program." The documentary is called "H for Hunger" and that will hopefully be coming out this year and hopefully a lot of people will see it, buy it, and endure it somehow. And we'll make a lot of money and I'm going to give all my profits, hopefully there are a lot of them, to a food program. I don't want any money from it; we did this thing to raise money and awareness about world hunger. And so that's a thing that I've but a considerable amount of time and finance into, and I don't have a release date for it, but we're working on it. We're trying to get this thing out. And so that's probably the biggest thing as far as cash outlay and putting assets on the line.

On upcoming book plans:

Yes, two this year. One just came out called "The Preferred Blur" and the other one is at the printer and is called "The Mad Dash" and one was a travel stories and a mad dash and the other is travel and journal stories from 2008. It's kind of like "Broken Summers," it's travel and documentation and so we worked very hard here at the company to get them both out this year. It was a lot of work to copy edit 300,000 words. It's a lot of time, that was basically January to April, just everyday staring at the manuscripts that never seemed to go away. And finally one of them went off to the printer and one of them just came out and the other will be out in the autumn.

On upcoming musical ventures:

Yeah, I have no band, I have no band plans, I went out in 2006 with my guys and we did a very successful tour with the L.A. band 'X', but at the end of it I felt kind of like being in the fifth year at university, and I should kind of be moving on. It just felt like yesterday and a really weird feeling and ultimately kind of depressing. I mean, the guys were cool, the music was fine. It just seemed like a younger guy should be doing this... it didn't feel like me anymore. Since then, I haven't even written any lyrics, it's just not talking to me right now. You never know, this time next year I could be all about the music, but I try to go where my honesty and my interest takes me, so if I can't be 100 percent, I'd rather go be 100 percent elsewhere. So no, no music plans... Well, at least until it becomes an irritating obsession, I can't or shouldn't do what doesn't compel me to create it.

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