Luke Evans
The Welsh star on his fantasy past and high-flying future.
Being late to the party isn’t always a bad thing. Just ask Luke Evans. Rising through the ranks at a time when tween heartthrobs dominated and 23-year-old Oscar winners were de rigueur, Evans might be considered a late bloomer for making his big screen debut at the ripe old age of 30. But in the six years since playing golden god Apollo in Clash Of The Titans, the Welsh actor has more than made up for lost time. “When I first started I felt I was on the back foot, having to really pick up my game and catch up with my contemporaries,” Evans tells Total Film, the personable star striking a contemplative tone, and not for the first time during our discussion. “I knew that I needed experience with good people: a great crew, great actors and great directors – and that’s what I did.”
After early supporting turns in Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe and Ian Dury biopic Sex &
Drugs & Rock & Roll, Hollywood came calling in a major way, Evans’ ascension to the A-list running in parallel with fellow Brits Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch. Cramming in a minimum of three films a year and the odd TV mini-series here and there hasn’t been easy, but he has no regrets. “There was a time when I was literally learning a script for a new film halfway through the movie I was shooting,” he says from the relative warmth of a New York Hotel while winter wages war on tolerable temperatures outside. “It keeps you incredibly fit and active and committed and focused, but if you do that constantly it can stunt your creative growth.”
There’s little risk of arrested development as far as Evans is concerned. The Pontypool-born son of a bricklayer and a cleaner left school at 17 for the stage, starring in back-to-back West End musicals between 2000 and 2008 – from Taboo to Small Change. His performance in the latter
brought critical acclaim and earned him the attention of American casting directors, leading directly to a Hollywood career which, a little unusually given his world-class warbling, hasn’t encompassed a single musical. Until now.
Next year Evans will finally be let loose on a mic in Bill Condon’s live action adaptation of
Beauty And The Beast. He plays barrel-chested hunter Gaston, who vies for the affections of Emma Watson’s Belle while hanging out with the bumbling Le Fou ( Josh Gad). “Gaston, he’s larger than life and he has this incredible journey,” Evans explains, the star’s effusive enthusiasm for the role evident from the moment the film is mentioned. “He starts off as this loveable rogue who people find funny but slightly annoying, and he’s got this ridiculous self-respect which is hilarious to watch. And then you see this man crack. He starts to not get what he wants, and basically turns into the monster at the end of the film.” Evans cites the 1991 Disney animation as one of his favourites due to the “iconic” story and songs, which Condon’s version will retain while adding several new toe-tappers. “It’s incredibly loyal to the story. All the music is there. I literally can’t wait to see this. It’s very exciting.”
Beauty And The Beast marks the culmination of a career in fantasy that has encompassed not one but two Greek Gods, Bard The Bowman in the second and third Hobbit movies and the Prince Of Darkness himself in Dracula Untold. But despite his success in the field he doesn’t go in search of the kind of escapist characters he’s best known for. “It’s the role that’s important: who’s directing it, the story...” he explains. “As much as The Hobbit is a fantasy story, I don’t look at my role in that film as in a fantasy world. I know I kill a dragon and all the rest of it, but I see him as this father. He’s a single parent, fighting for his children, supporting them and saving them from the world in which they live. I made him as real a person as I possibly could.”
Going up
That methodology came to the fore for his recent foray into dystopian sci-fi. In Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s thoroughly British satire High-Rise, Evans plays Richard Wilder, an unemployed documentary maker leading a second-class lifestyle who takes the fight to the toffs on the top floor. “When I picked up the script and read it, I was first of all quite amazed and shocked – in a positive way – that the film was even being made,” he admits. “It’s not often those sorts of roles cross my path. For me, it just screamed ‘delightful rebel’. I was able to let my inhibitions out with this character. It’s crazy some of the stuff that he does.”
Crazy perfectly sums up Wilder, an alpha male who befriends Hiddleston’s Robert Laing and womanises his way through the isolated tower block as it descends into chaos. Sporting a ’70s porn-stache (self-grown) and sizeable stick-on sideburns (currently in a plastic box in Evans’ London home “they look ridiculous, like some mini-merkin”), Wilder is a force of nature and the perfect complement to Laing’s calm eye of the storm. Evans credits an unwavering trust in his director for the ferocity of his performance.
“I really believed Ben could tell the story, so I felt very safe in his hands from the second I met him over a lunch in Covent Garden. I felt like he was going to spread my wings a bit more than I had done in other roles.”
With a white vest and those mammoth chops, Evans bears more than a passing resemblance to Hugh Jackman’s adamantium-infused mutant Wolverine (a character Evans recently voiced for an episode of American claymation comedy series Robot Chicken).
TF suggests he’d make a good replacement when Jackman eventually hangs up the claws, an idea he quickly laughs off. “He really is, to me, the only man that could be that character.” All this X-chatter brings to mind the one notable omission from Evans’ CV: one of the spandexclad superheroes that constitute the staple diet of a rapidly expanding roster of actors. Not that he hasn’t been offered comic-book movie roles in the past. “I’ve been up for some but they’ve often come at the wrong time for me. I’ve wanted to mix my career up with things like High-Rise and things like [ upcoming thriller] Message
From The King and [ book adap] The Girl On The Train, and then jump into something big. It’s a big step, joining those franchises. They can take up a lot of your life, your career. That’s great, but they come at the right time for every person, and for me it hasn’t so far been the right time. Or the right role.”
In the blood
The closest Evans has come was his first big budget leading man role in 2014’s Dracula Untold. The film may have received mixed reviews, but no-one could doubt Evans’ commitment to the role, one he cites as more arduous than even the year-long shoot for The Hobbit: “I was the lead character. It was a very intense three, four months of my life. I was in almost every other shot. Physically, it was incredibly demanding. I was doing my own fight sequences. I was trying to stay in this crazy shape, but also bringing this very strong narrative and drama to the character.” Drac’s future is uncertain, with sequel talk falling deafeningly silent after a muted opening weekend, but it’s a role Evans would like to sink his fangs into again. “It was only after we started that the monster franchise became much more clear, and that [ Dracula Untold] was the beginning of something much, much bigger. It’s very exciting to think that he’ll come back at some point. I’d be happy to play him again.” If Evans’ own experience is anything to go by, there may well be an appetite for it. “I get recognised constantly as Dracula. It’s more Dracula than anything else, especially in America. It’s quite weird, actually.”
Evans is unusually humble for a leading man, a fact likely borne from his hard fought big screen breakthrough, reiterating several times how “lucky” he feels to do what he does. And whether it’s working in an ensemble or taking on leading man duties, he shies away from romanticising his profession. “It’s a role. You commit to a role – whether you’re committing to a role that’s part of an ensemble, or committing to a role that’s leading a story, it’s a challenge. That’s why, as an actor, I think you’re in the job to develop your abilities, push your boundaries, shock yourself, shock others, and come out the other end with more knowledge about your ability and storytelling techniques than you did when you went in. It’s about the story and how well you can tell it.” Evans has a busy year ahead with Message
From The King, starring future Black Panther Chadwick Boseman as a South African who travels to LA to avenge his sister’s death; and the adaptation of best-selling mystery novel
The Girl On The Train, a production Evans was parachuted into at the eleventh hour after Jared Leto’s sudden departure. The Welsh actor is in New York shooting the film where he plays Scott, one half of a seemingly idyllic couple, but is forbidden to discuss it or he faces being strapped to the nearest train tracks. Beyond that, for the first time in almost six years, his schedule is all clear (he plans to take a skiing holiday during the brief window where he isn’t under contract), but he isn’t ruling out a return to the stage in the future. “I met Keira Knightley recently in New York. She was talking to me about a play that she’s just finished on Broadway and how intense it was for her. When I was talking to her about it, I sort of started to get itchy feet and feel the longing to go back and perform more on stage.”
Before any theatrical homecomings, he has a run of unsavoury screen characters in the bag. So with an unhinged performance in
High-Rise and the big bad in Beauty And The Beast coming up, is it fair to say that Evans is truly embracing his dark side? “I think I embraced my dark side many years ago!” he laughs. “The darkness has well and truly been accepted. When you’ve got a face like mine, it’s hard to stay away from the darkness.”
‘As an actor, you’re in the job to push your boundaries, shock yourself and shock others’