Luke Evans takes a big bite

LONDON — When Luke Evans was in Manila in May last year for the promo/world premiere for Fast & Furious 6 (with Vin Diesel and other co-stars), he graciously capped our interview with a wide smile that showed his fangs.

“They are in preparation for my next movie,” he revealed.

That movie is Universal Pictures’ Dracula Untold (opening nationwide on Wednesday, Oct. 15, distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures) which tells the original story of the alluring immortal the world has come to fear as the sun sets — yes, Dracula.

Luke plays Vlad the Impaler who transforms from a cursed man in history into an all-powerful creature of the night. Megged by first-time feature-film director Gary Shore, Dracula Untold goes back to year 1462 when Transylvania enjoyed a prolonged period of peace under the just and fair rule of the battle-weary Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, and his beloved and brave wife, Mirena (played by Sarah Gadon, star of Cosmopolis with Robert Pattinson and Antiviral, both of which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with Andrew Garfield). Together, they have brokered peace for their country and ensured its people are well-protected, especially from the powerful Ottoman Empire, an ever-expanding scourge that has its sights on global domination.

But when Sultan Mehmed II (played by Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger, etc.) demands 1,000 of Wallachia’s boys. Including Vlad’s own son, Ingeras (Art Parkinson of HBO’s Game of Thrones), be torn from their parents’ homes and forced to become child soldiers in his army, Vlad must decide whether or not he should do the same his father did before him and give up his son to the sultan, or seek the help of a monster to defeat the Turks but ultimately doom his soul to a life of servitude.

Vlad journeys to Broken Tooth Mountain where he encounters a foul demon (Charles Dance of Game of Thrones) and enters into a Faustian bargain, one that gives the prince the strength of 100 men, the speed of a falling star and enough power to crush his enemies. However, he will be inflicted with an insatiable thirst to drink human blood.

With that backgrounder, I guess you will understand the Bloodsucker better even when he has already been featured in scores of movies and TV shows, played with ferocity by several actors led by the unforgettable Christopher Lee.

Luke must have been born to do the honor of resurrecting Dracula because, believe it or not, he came into the world with fangs, real fangs, so the producers needed only to make them a bit longer for effect.

“These are mine,” Luke touched his fangs. “They are always the talking point every time I talk about this movie. I’ve always had quite long K-9s. It’s a very strange thing. My parents don’t have them. No one ever noticed them before, until the offer to do Dracula came. But,” he confessed, “I did have fake ones, which are much larger and very sharp, for the movie.”

When he sat for an exclusive Conversation at a function room of the Corinthia Hotel, a few blocks away from Strand Palace Hotel where the international journalists invited to the junket were billeted, I handed Luke a copy of The STAR carrying my story titled The Showbiz Gospel According to Luke. He broke into the same wide smile that, you guessed it, revealed his fangs.

“Oh, so you are from the Philippines,” he acknowledged. “It’s a great place. I have lots of friends there.”

Of course, I reminded him, there are several Filipinos on West End cast in the revived Miss Saigon (Jonjon Briones as The Engineer, the best actor of that iconic role so far; Rachelle Ann Go as Gigi; Tanya Manalang and Eva Noblezada alternating as Kim; and a few others as members of the ensemble).

“I know,” Luke said. “That’s how I met them.” In Miss Saigon, that is, in which Luke played a major role for one year together with Ima Castro (as Kim), Jake Macapagal and Miriam Marasigan. “Before the Fast & Furious promo in Manila, I went on a vacation in the Philippines 10 years earlier. I loved it. My Miss Saigon friends showed me around. We went down south to Boracay and to many other places. Sadly, during the Fast & Furious trip, I didn’t have enough time to see more of the country. Maybe I will…next time.”

He described Filipinos as probably the most talented race on the planet. “Everybody can sing so well. Singing seems to be inherent in Filipino, just as it is in my race. That’s why I have this affinity with Filipinos.”

Born an only child on April 15, 1979, in a small town in Rhymmey Valley, South Wales, Luke at age 7 moved to Cardiff to study singing under an established coach. In 1997, he enrolled as a scholar at the London Studio Center in Kings Cross, London, graduating in 2000 and heading straight to West End where he landed roles in (aside from Miss Saigon) Rent, Avenue Q and Small Change which turned out to be his most significant role at that time because, aside from having been nominated for the Best Newcomer Award at the Evening Standard Awards, he also attracted the attention and interest of US film-casting directors and agents.

Since 2009, Luke has done several films, including (aside from Fast & Furious 6) the remake of Clash of the Titans, Sex & Drugs and Rock & Roll, The Three Musketeers, Immortals, The Raven, The Crow, in The Hobbit films An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, and soon in the trilogy’s final film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

“I am a very good guy in real life,” he volunteered. “My mother taught me well. I had a very lovely childhood and being an only child, I’m very close to my mom and my dad. I lived in a small village until I was 16. I’ve been living in London longer than I ever lived in Wales. I’ve always been performing since I was a kid, at home or anywhere else. I’m 35 and I’m very lucky to be doing what I’d always wanted to do since I was six years old.”

Has he ever experienced rejection?

“It happens all the time. It doesn’t bother me when I don’t get a job. It’s life. What do you do? You look for another one and hopefully you start all over again. I knew that I wanted to perform and going into acting was not an option. I came from a working-class background and what mattered was getting a job. I did. I got a job in a shoe shop and I used to keep £15 of my money every week, and have singing and acting lessons. That’s how my career in acting began.

“Then my singing teacher put me up for an audition for a scholarship when I was 16 and I went to London and I won it. That was the beginning of my training. It was just by luck and chance that somebody believed in me. But I spent the start of my career in the West End of London singing. That’s what I did, I played Chris (the American soldier who falls in love with Kim) in Miss Saigon and that’s how my connection with the Philippines came from.”

What was his reaction when he was offered to play Dracula?

“I was like…,” Luke paused and laughed, “…no, I’m too young! Come on, I’m too young to play this role. Uhm, but when I read the script, I realized it’s not the Dracula story that we all know; it’s the origin story of the most famous vampire. It’s nice to tell a story about a historical figure that lived for 400 years before the Bramstoker story began. As soon as I read it, I said, ‘Okay, I will do it.’ I said that I can understand Vlad III and I like him and I can give him human feelings and emotions, and make the story very relatable from the offset even if he doesn’t turn into a vampire.

“It’s nice to think that the audience will be able to understand, and maybe not agree with what he does, but understand his choices and his decisions and the reasons why.”

Has he tasted raw blood in real life?

“Yes, my own when I cut a finger in the kitchen,” admitted Luke who didn’t have to bulk up for the movie because he’s a gym rat and he spends most of his free time working out. “The blood in the film is not real. It’s cherry juice mixed with something red and it tastes sweet, and I like it.”

Because the issue about nude pictures of some Hollywood stars have been hacked and circulated social media is raging, I decided to end our interview by asking Luke how he felt about it.

“How do I protect myself from it?” he shook his head. “It’s above my head; I don’t understand how it works. It’s an invasion on people’s privacy and it shouldn‘t happen, but it does. It’s scary!”

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