The Verge: Luke Evans

Luke Evans is your new leading man -- you just don't know it yet. The Welsh 30-year-old made his name on the British stage by starring in productions of Miss Saigon and Taboo, and since he transitioned into film last year, he's booked role after role after role. In Robin Hood and Clash of the Titans, Evans had smaller supporting parts, but he turned heads as the romantic lead opposite Gemma Arterton in the Cannes comedy Tamara Drewe, and after he finishes Tarsem Singh's Immortals, he'll be playing Aramis in Paul W.S. Anderson's The Three Musketeers (with a cast that includes Orlando Bloom and Christoph Waltz) and the title character in the biopic Vivaldi, opposite Jessica Biel. Not a bad haul for someone who hadn't even appeared in a film until this year!

Movieline caught up with the busy Evans to get the scoop on all of his upcoming projects and the one movie musical he's desperate to be a part of.

I know you've spent your whole acting career in theater, up until this point. What had kept you from dipping a toe in film or TV?

Mainly, I think it was opportunity -- it didn't arise. In the UK, I found it harder as a theater actor to cross over. It isn't the easiest thing -- you can ask any theater actor in the UK, it's not an easy transition. I was very lucky, because I got a job at the Donmar Warehouse, which helped put me on the map for people who cast movies and hadn't seen me in anything else I'd ever done. That really was how I got my first film audition, from a play I did at the Donmar called Small Change, which was about two years ago.

Which film was that?

I think the first film I went up for was Dorian Gray [starring Colin Firth and Ben Barnes]. I never got it. [Laughs]

Do you feel like you're going up for different types of roles in film than you were in theater?

I think I've been very lucky with the films that I've gone up for, they've been really quite different in not just roles but in size. They've been great big studio movies but also independent films, so I feel like I've had a great chance to play these different roles. In theater, I did a lot of musicals where I played leading men, and they're usually romantic leads, so yeah, I think I do get to play some different roles in film. Also, films don't take as long to do -- maybe three or four months, if it's a studio movie -- so if you can fit a couple into a year, you get to play a lot of roles. In theater, you play the same character for a set amount of time, and that could take up to a year.

Your Tamara Drewe role is really going to be kind of a calling card for you. What was the Cannes experience like for the film?

It was completely overwhelming, but not to the point where I wasn't enjoying it -- I thoroughly enjoyed being part of a film that was received so incredibly well. The audience just lapped it up because I think it was such a heavy, dark year for film at Cannes, and Tamara Drewe is totally opposite of that. It's light and fun and it has so many gifted British actors in it, excluding myself. [Laughs] You get such closure when people accept it and love it. It was really nice, and I'm looking forward to that coming out.

Are you still shooting Immortals right now?

Literally, I just arrived back in Montreal after having a month off to film Immortals. So yeah, I got back last night, and went straight back into training this morning. Now, I'm back in my apartment, exhausted.

When you say "training," what does that entail?

Well, I've lost 33 pounds in weight since starting the physical training three months ago for this film.

Jesus, Luke! Well, I did see a picture of Henry Cavill from the film and he looks ultra-ripped. Is that the aesthetic that Tarsem is going for?

I had a trainer and a stuntman, and basically, we worked for two to three hours a day, six days a week, for five weeks. Yeah, I dropped, like, 33 pounds. It's crazy.

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