Luke Evans has revealed the brilliant response Gemma Arterton had when he told her he was gay.
The Welsh actor, 45, had always been open with his friends and family about his sexuality but worried it could impact the roles he got when he transitioned from the stage to the big screen.
Opening up in his new memoir titled Boy from the Valleys: An Unexpected Journey, Evans explained: “When I started working in movies, it suddenly became an issue again because at that time you just didn’t get openly gay actors playing straight romantic leads.”
He said that his “sexuality became a ‘thing’ to be handled and strategised, rather than simply being just another aspect of my identity, like having green eyes or being Welsh”.
One of the first co-stars he came out to was Arterton when they worked together on the 2010 romantic comedy Tamara Drewe.
The Beauty & the Beast star was cast as one of the love interests of Arterton’s titular lead character and they became friends during its production.
During this time, Evans recalled that his then-long-term partner Lee only visited him once while he was shooting the film, “primarily because we couldn’t be open about our relationship”.
While to most people in the film industry he would introduce Lee as just his “friend”, he decided he wanted to be open with Arterton “about who he was”, but wasn’t prepared for her response.
He said: “Our bedrooms were next to each other in our hotel and when I confessed that Lee was actually my boyfriend she said with a smile: ‘Honey, I’m in the room next door – I know!’
Evans continued: “It was such a relief to be able to be open with her and know that she had my back regardless, because she knew how the industry worked and the pressure I was under. The big American studios were still very much of the ‘a man is a man’ mindset.”
