Unlikely action star Luke Evans relived his past to inspire others

How does a skinny, gay Welsh kid raised in a strict Jehovah’s Witnesses community become a famous Hollywood action movie star with credits on “Clash of the Titans” and the “Fast & Furious” franchise? As Luke Evans reveals in his candid memoir titled “Boy From the Valleys,” musical theater, singing lessons and friends in helpful places eased his way to London’s West End and then movie and TV stardom.

In Los Angeles to promote his latest action role in “Swimming With Sharks” director George Huang’s “Weekend in Taipei,” Evans soon will return to Portland, Ore., for work on the Prime Video series “Criminal,” in which he plays the lead role of Tracy Lawless. He’s squeezing in queries about his memoir, out Nov. 7, between other press duties. The star of Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast” film, now 45, is used to juggling nonstop obligations since childhood.

Starting out in musical theater, he didn’t have the luxury of financial security. “It was literally job to job, and there was no chance of saving any money,” Evans says. “I could never sit back and go, ‘I’m good,’ and for many reasons it worried me.”

As the only child of a bricklayer father, “I knew there was a responsibility for me to protect us, to look after us, and I couldn’t see that happening” at that point in his career.

At the age of 26, Evans decided he’d give himself until 30 to find financial security in his work or he’d give it up. Almost fatefully, at 30, Hollywood agents came calling.

“When this business of film and television started for me, it came completely out of the blue,” he says. “It was not anything I planned for, and it changed our lives.”

He loves “telling stories and bringing characters to life and this ability to create conversations and entertainment,” but says, “Part of why I have this work ethic is because I have people that I want to look after, to keep safe.”

Once Evans began hitting casting calls in L.A., he was off and running. Before long, he had booked roles as a Greek god in “Clash of the Titans,” a thug in Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” and lovestruck farmer Andy in Stephen Frears’ “Tamara Drewe.” He subsequently played a villain in the “Fast & the Furious” franchise, Aramis in “The Three Musketeers,” a dragon slayer in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies, Vlad the vampire in “Dracula Untold” and the vainglorious Gaston in Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast.” More recently he has appeared opposite Nicole Kidman in Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers” and starred in the forthcoming “Weekend in Taipei,” produced by Luc Besson.

When he does get a break between projects, he spends time at his homes in Lisbon or Ibiza, “doing nothing but reading, cooking and going to the beach.”

This is all a world away from the actor’s early life, which his memoir details in depth. Growing up in the South Wales village of Aberbargoed, he accompanied his mother on door-knocking duties, an obligation of their Jehovah’s Witnesses religion. It was a religion that steadfastly refused to admit or countenance homosexuals, so when young Evans came out to friends and later to his parents, it seemed obvious that he would have to move out and make his own way at 17. He has worked tirelessly ever since.

Among his accomplishments: recording a solo album (two in fact, in 2019 and 2022), performing on Broadway, traveling the world, headlining action movies, portraying gay characters with all the nuance that they were once denied and writing a thoroughly entertaining memoir.

“In an autobiography, you want your voice to come through. I wanted it to feel like talking to a friend and sharing my story the way I want to tell it,” he says.

The memoir developed following a BBC radio interview that aired in late 2022. In it, Evans revealed a lot of previously unknown stories of growing up in a strict Jehovah’s Witnesses household, struggling with his sexual identity, performing musical theater and coming late to success.

A week later, Evans recalls, a division of Penguin Random House “approached my literary agent in London and proposed a memoir. I immediately went, ‘I’m 45, hang on! They can’t do a memoir at 45.’”

But on reflection, Evans decided to write the book not so much for himself as “for young people, people who have struggled with their identity, people who may be lost, living in a small town in the middle of nowhere, or who were raised in a highly religious household,” he says.

“I’m all of those people,” he notes. “I thought this could be inspiring for anyone who might read it, because I’ve struggled many times in my life and wanted to give up. This is me sharing stories that could possibly help someone.”

From the moment Evans sat down to write, free of distractions, it took 10 months to complete his life story to date.

“It was painful to read back at times, but there’s so much hope,” he says. “I thought I had a really poor memory, so I was concerned when I started this book that I’d forget all the nuanced detail,” but in actuality, when he gave himself enough space and time, he found that he could “open a collection of doors and memories.”

Evans confesses that he didn’t expect the process to be as emotional as it turned out to be. As an actor, he is able to distance himself from roles “because the character isn’t you, their story isn’t yours, but it’s your job to portray it as honestly as possible.” But in this case, “There were moments where I couldn’t distance myself.”

After writing passages of his memoir, there were days where he had to be on his own “and go for a really long walk. It was a profound experience, and mostly a rewarding one.”

Some moments were overwhelming, “because I was right back there alone, or suffering, and I didn’t have anyone, and I remember what it felt like,” he says. “That’s probably the actor in me, being empathetic and putting myself in someone else’s shoes. But this time, I was just putting myself in my own little shoes when I was younger. “

Given all the tough-guy roles he has played, it is telling that Evans finds it scary to share his own life story.

“This book is really like putting my life on a plate and giving it to somebody,” he says. “It’s really a scary moment for me to give this out.”