I’ve been meaning to put this together ever since I wrote about Dracula Untold. To read the interviews and learn more about the man who, once again, brought Vlad the Impaler back to life. I was worried that I would not find what I was looking for, but I was wrong. Luke Evans is a fascinating artist, just like we love them. Any other quotes you would like to add, my lovelies? Or perhaps recommend a film. I would love to watch The Raven soon, but the list is open.
*
“I always wanted to sing, as a child. I didn’t care how I was going to do it, but I always sang. When I left school, I got a job in a shoe shop and I used to save 15 quid a week and pay for my own singing and acting lessons. That’s basically how I began. It was just an outlet for me because I always loved to do those things. I never thought once, at 16, that I’d be able to do it as a living.” (source)
“I didn’t really have a passion for anything else. I felt alive when I read a script and acted out a scene, or sang a song. It was my dream. I’m just very lucky that I’m still doing it and able to earn a living from it.” (source)
“I spent over a year not working, at one point, but I never gave up. I never thought, I’m going to throw it in. It was my job. It was my dream. And I knew that, being an actor, you have to take the rough with the smooth and the highs with the lows. That’s how it is.” (source)
“I was 30, a fully fledged man, I wasn’t a twinkie kid. I didn’t have a pretty face, I had rugged lines. I’m not a Twilight boy, I’ll never be as good looking as those lads, and that’s fair enough. I’m this dude that can play a farmhand and a handyman and sometimes a Greek god. And now I’m playing Count Dracula.” (source)
“I’ve always said that theater was where I began, so everything I do now has a bit of my theater background in it. It was my training. This film (Dracula Untold) is slightly theatrical; the whole thing is a huge spectacle of a journey for one man. It was fun. I had to shout to a huge crowd of warriors on quite a few days enough to command that audience, and there were moments when I did feel like I was on a stage. Commanding an audience when you’re onstage is quite a feat. If you can do it and you have them in the palm of your hand – which doesn’t happen all the time – you feel like you’re king of the world. There were certain scenes in the film where I had to gain the respect or the fear of who I was performing to in the scene, and I my theater training helped there.” (source)
“I think he is a very strong character, I mean you couldn’t really play Vlad any other way when you look at his back-story, his real back-story 
of who he was, this impaler who did this incredibly dark stuff in his past and he put that character to sleep and locked the armour away in a dungeon somewhere. But all of that stuff really helped me create a whole spectrum of emotions for that man – he was a father and a husband and a lawgiver, a very fair ruler as much as he was a ruthless ruler you know he had the respect and love of his people and history has allowed him to be infamous with his name, but there was much more to him than just the impaling and I think that’s what I learnt when I did all the research on him, there was so much to read and a lot to him that most people don’t know. ” (source)
“As much as my parents were worried about me moving to London at 17, they could see that I was hungry to find my path. And it probably helped that they saw me succeeding at it, slowly but surely.” (source)
“I was often looked at as a leper by kids at school, because I was a Jehovah’s Witness. They didn’t like it – you were ‘weird’. And on Saturday mornings you’d be knocking at their doors. I remember standing there with my mum and dad, thinking, ‘Oh my God, I know whose door this is, and I’ll have to see them on Monday.’ It was terrible.” (source)
“I think that these days men feel the same panic about ageing as women. I don’t know whether it’s their agents who tell them to do things but I do know that my agent wouldn’t dare. In fact I’d tell anyone who tried to tell me to get rid of my frown lines to take a running jump.” (source)
“Maybe I’m an old soul, and I’ve lived before. Maybe directors see a face that seems to have been lived in. I guess I have a certain look about me. I think once I’m in a costume or I’ve got a certain period look, I seem to fit it quite well. I don’t know why that is. I’m quite happy that’s the case, because it’s actually quite fun to jump into a world that doesn’t exist anymore, or didn’t exist ever. But it’s exciting because it’s an incredibly immersive job, as an actor, to disappear into a world that doesn’t exist or tell a story about a character that lived a long time ago.” (source)
“Rudeness is the trait that I most deplore. I had a massive falling out with somebody at Rio airport. She screamed at me. I said, “You need to mind your manners.” She was so rude that her daughters came to the lounge afterwards and apologised for her. They were only teenagers.” (source)
“Don’t worry about being rejected. Life’s all about rejection. The challenge is to pick yourself up, brush yourself off and go for the next one.” (video)
by Elena Atudosiei
I don’t know much about this man and his work but he sounds like a most interesting chap. Looking forward to seeing him in “The Crow” and alongside Tom Hiddleston in “High-Rise”. Great article, Elena. As always. 🙂
Thank you, darling! :* Like you, I also look forward to see those films and hope that “The Crow” will not be cancelled. I love the original, but I also want one with Luke Evans.