Luke Evans says Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones was one of his gay awakenings. He named Ford, an old Calvin Klein campaign and a member of the British pop group Big Fun in a BuzzFeed UK “CelebriTea” video posted to YouTube on Oct. 13.
“Definitely Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones,” Evans said. He listed what did it for him: “That amazing scar he has on his face, the leather, the look, the hat, the stubble.”
He figured the original Calvin Klein ads with Marky Mark and Kate Moss “would have done something to me.” Then Big Fun came to mind, which he said surprised even him. One of the members had great blond hair. Evans had a stubborn cowlick as a kid and used to bring photos of pop star Jason Donovan to the hairdresser. It never worked.
“So, yeah, it was always hair that sort of did it for me,” he said.
Evans was there to promote “The Party,” a five-part ITV drama based on Elizabeth Day’s 2017 novel, The Week reported. It premiered Oct. 11 on ITV1 and ITVX, according to ITV. He plays Martin Gilmour, a working-class outsider whose friend Benjamin Fitzmaurice is a rising Conservative Party star. In the video, Evans called Martin “tight, buttoned up, closeted, complex.”
From ‘The Party’ to ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ in One Week
Evans said he finished filming “The Party” on Jan. 30. He flew to New York on Feb. 3 and started rehearsals for Broadway’s “The Rocky Horror Show” on Feb. 7. The revival opened at Studio 54 on April 23, and his last show as Frank-N-Furter was Aug. 23, Nation.Cymru reported.
He’d assumed the part was “a young man’s job,” he told BuzzFeed. Then he took it. “It was the most liberating, freeing thing I’ve possibly ever done,” he said. It was his first stage musical in 18 years. He put his count at 173 performances “or something.”
Offstage, Frank’s hedonism didn’t rub off. “I lived the life of a monk when I wasn’t on stage,” Evans said. He didn’t drink or go out. He walked his dog, napped, ate clean, went to the gym and saw a physiotherapist weekly.
Luke Evans’ Speedo Photos and His Swim Brief Line
The interviewer brought up his viral Speedo pictures. Evans’ workout tip was simple. “Do a Broadway show,” he said. He told BuzzFeed he lost 22 pounds during the run without adding cardio to his offstage routine.
He also corrected the vocabulary. “Speedos is actually a brand,” he said. He calls them swim briefs. People kept asking where his came from, so he started his own label, and he said the whole collection “all came from these pictures.” The label is BDXY, which he started with Fran Tomas and stylist Christopher Brown, the South China Morning Post reported.
Evans on Playing ‘Straight Macho Roles’ as an Openly Gay Actor
Asked whether he’d enjoyed landing macho action parts as an openly gay actor, Evans said it “tickled” him. “I had sort of straight actor friends who were going up for the same roles and I was the one getting them,” he said.
He made a similar point to The Telegraph earlier this month, Fox News reported. “I’ve played mostly straight macho roles my whole career, and I’ve loved it,” he told the paper. “If gay people only played gay characters, then I’d have had no career.”
He added a caveat in that interview. “But I understand there’s also not enough opportunities for gay actors to play gay characters,” Evans said, “or for trans actors to play trans characters.”
“The Party” filmed in Wales. Evans told BuzzFeed he hadn’t lived there in 30 years and spent three and a half months shooting near his parents, cousins and school friends.
