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BEST KNOWN FOR PLAYING THE ROLE OF BARD THE BOWMAN IN THE HOBBIT, WELSH ACTOR LUKE EVANS IS SET TO CAPTURE MORE HEARTS AS HE STARS IN THREE NEW MOVIES THIS YEAR. KARISHMA TULSIDAS GETS CANDID WITH THE HEARTTHROB DURING BASELWORLD

Actor Luke Evans gets up close and personal and shares his love for Bulgari’s watches

“Watches are timeless, and are like a piece of jewellery. Your watch has to represent you and also has to blend in with what you’re wearing.”

It’s 11am, and the bvlgari booth at the

Baselworld fair is packed to the brim—to be fair, it’s always buzzing with journalists and retailers. But today is special. International press have been invited to have breakfast with Luke Evans, actor and brand ambassador for watches for Bulgari. As I sit down for a chat with him, his agent proffers strict guidelines: no pictures. He smiles and asks, shall we take a selfie then?

If his good looks, angular jawline and hooded eyes hadn’t already captured my heart, that easy charm and lilting Welsh accent warms me up within seconds. There is an intriguing polarity between his easy-going personality and the dark, sinister characters he typically portrays. The day after we meet, he’s off to London for the premiere of High Rise, his first launch of 2016. It’s yet another vehicle for Evans to portray a nefarious, multi-layered character, this time in the form of Richard Wilder, an alpha male who hurtles into a state of anarchy.

It’s a far cry from his theatrical beginnings, where he starred in West End productions Miss Saigon, Rent, and his breakthrough role as Boy George’s object of affection in the musical Taboo. While he misses acting on a live stage, Evans is now making his way up to the Hollywood big leagues. From playing the Smaug-slaying Bard the Bowman in 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Evans has three movies out this year alone, including The Girl on the Train and Message from the King.

With The Girl on the Train, Evans plays the role of a widower whose wife was murdered. He says, “He’s a broken man; it’s quite interesting and something I haven’t played much before. It’s a fun, but dark and quite sinister plot. The book is brilliant.”

Bringing literary characters to life is something he quite enjoys. “Every role I play is sort of a dream role,” he muses. “I have played a lot of characters from books, and people have told me that I was exactly what they thought the character would look like. That’s a very lovely thing to hear.”

His selection of more “serious” characters is not deliberate: he says that he would like to do a little more romance and comedy. “I would like to play a true romantic one day, and some comedy would be nice, have a little giggle every now and then.”

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Evans has joined Bulgari for its many glamorous parties around the globe, but the one project that resonates most with him is the Italian brand’s support of NGO Save the Children. He has participated in a photo shoot for the coffee table book Stop Think Give, whose proceeds go to the charity, and he has also travelled to an underprivileged neighbourhood in South Wales near his childhood home.

He says, “We met the children and their parents, and I saw what a success it was to give them something to do after school, to bring the families together and to work as a community. This was an initiative partly funded by Bulgari. It’s nice to see that for this glamorous, beautiful, incredibly historical luxury brand like Bulgari, they haven’t forgotten that there are people who need help.”

Through his role as ambassador for Bulgari, he has also become a watch collector over the years. He appreciates the Octo, and collects its different variations. “I’ve had to put a safe in my house, but really I shouldn’t be telling you that! Watches are timeless, and are like a piece of jewellery. Your watch has to represent you and also has to blend in with what you’re wearing; I wear the pink gold Octo quite often. It’s such a beautiful colour and seems to work with the colours I wear.”

He is particularly enamoured of the latest addition to the Octo family—the titanium Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater, the world’s thinnest minute repeater. “It’s not a watch you wear to show off, it’s a watch that’s close to the wrist. It’s very personal.”