The Hobbit's Luke Evans talks Bard the Bowman heroics and pointy hats

WALES ON LINE
Dec 03, 2014 13:00 By Kathryn Williams


Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The role of Bard the Bowman was a career changing performance for Aberbargoed actor Luke Evans, who hasn’t been off our screens in months, it seems.

With film and television roles in Dracula: Untold, The Raven, Clash of the Titans, The Three Musketeers and The Great Train Robbery, Evans’ face is now instantly recognisable thanks to Peter Jackson’s latest JRR Tolkien trilogy, The Hobbit.

At the international press conference at Claridge’s, Evans – who was voted Wales’ Sexiest Man 2014 last month, revealed that it was four years since he shot the dramatic action scenes which saved his character’s hometown from dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).

“I knew what Bard was capable of and knew what he ends up doing in the three movies, but when I started playing him he was a father of three without a wife who had a long journey ahead of him.

“It was very strange last night (at the premiere) to see the full sequence of me on the tower (trying to kill Smaug), which was one of the first things I shot.

“Peter had me up on wires for hours! That was four years ago - so I’ve waited a long time to see that!”

Asked whether he would have preferred to have the role of a Hobbit or wizard instead of a human in the movie, he replied: “I would’ve liked a pointy hat!

“I knew what role I was going for before I went in so I knew I was going to be one of the very few humans in the trilogy.

“Actually, I felt quite lucky not to have to spend hours in the make-up chair.”

In the past Evans has revealed that director Peter Jackson requested he read for the part with his Welsh accent.

“I think they realised then that it sounded good, and that it could potentially be a valid accent for Bard,” explained Evans, to fansite theonering.net back in July.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/film-news/hobbits-luke-evans-talks-bard-8218891

Luke Evans interview: 'I'm not Robert Pattinson'

THE TELEGRAPH
By Celia Walden
11:30AM BST 22 Sep 2014



In the expert tones of a master sommelier, Luke Evans is describing what fake blood tastes like. ‘Most of it is very sweet and glucosey. Earlier this year I drank one with a very strong liquorice flavour. Then last year I drank some which was a mixture of cherry juice and beetroot juice. Now I’m filming a new movie where I’m covered in blood again,’ he grins, ‘and I can’t even remember seeing that in the script.’

In the past five years the 35-year-old Welshman has starred in such gore-fests as Clash of the Titans, Robin Hood and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – and in doing so has become, in the words of one US casting director, ‘the go-to period-action guy’ – a niche that will be further confirmed when his new film, Dracula Untold, in which Evans plays Vlad the Impaler, is released next month.

Set within a historical rather than a fantastical context, Dracula Untold strives to explain Vlad III’s beginnings in the early 1400s, before going on to chart his bloodthirsty rule in the old Romanian state of Walachia. ‘The film is about the transition Vlad made on a human level, after being taken captive by the Ottoman court and reared as a child by his father’s enemy, the first sultan,’ Evans says. ‘There he trained as a Turkish warrior, and learnt the gruesome torture techniques he went on to use against them as an adult.’

The nickname ‘Tepes’, or ‘Impaler’ – coined after Vlad’s favourite method of execution – was only attached posthumously, he explains. ‘And actually I don’t think he was born evil. So the idea is to make him if not likeable then at least understandable.’

READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/11109078/Luke-Evans-interview-Im-not-Robert-Pattinson.html

Tom Hiddleston tweets group picture from the set of High-Rise

RADIO TIMES
Emma Daly
11:49 AM, 07 August 2014



The film, adapted from J. G. Ballard’s dystopian novel, sees a group of residents in a futuristic apartment block turn on each other after they’re self-contained amenities cut them off from society.

Hiddleston plays the part of Dr. Robert Laing, an instructor at a local medical school, who becomes embroiled in the suddenly tribal environment of the block.

By the looks of things, Hiddleston (Thor, Only Lovers Left Alive) will be donning sharp-looking suits for the part, complete with neatly styled hair.

Luke Evans (The Hobbit, Dracula Untold), seen sporting a rather dashing moustache, takes on the role of television documentary producer Richard Wilder. While Laing lives up on the twenty fifth floor, Wilder lives on the second. As more groups and gangs develop, where you live in the block becomes of vital importance.

Put it this way, they probably won’t be huddling up close for selfies.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-08-07/tom-hiddleston-tweets-group-picture-from-the-set-of-high-rise