Luke Evans quotes:

For your own self-respect and sanity, your creative freedom, you have to be careful that you don't rely too much on other people's opinions of what you do because it can stunt and inhibit you.

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.

It's good for your body to have a break. Even when you're training, you have to have a cheat day every week. The body reacts better to training if you give it intervals of not training, or you relax the diet.

I come from the countryside. I come from a bunch of horticulture family members. My best friend was a farmer's boy.

Basically, Apollo was more of a mediator between Zeus in Olympus and Perseus on Earth. He played much more of an active role.

I was a weed. Such a skinny little weed. I just couldn't put on weight; I couldn't put on muscle. I was the oddest shape. And I thought that was it: that's how I'd look for the rest of my life. And I'd beat myself up about it so much. But you change an awful lot. You're 16. Your body's not even halfway to what it'll end up being.

I moved to Cardiff when I was 17 and never needed a car. When I came to L.A. for my first job there, I needed a car, so I had to pass my driving test.

I used to take my car and go down to the South Island for five or six days and climb glaciers and jump out of planes and jump off bridges and go white water rafting - a bit of thrill-seeking.

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.

I come from a country that lives and breathes rugby, and I didn't think there would be anywhere else in the world that could be the same. But New Zealand takes it to another dimension. It's extraordinary how much passion Kiwis have for the game.

I had a very lovely childhood, and, being an only child, I'm very close to my mom and my dad.

British actors are renowned for being great villains in movies, like Bond films, all the rest of it.

To be able to work with people who I have respected and admired, to be a part of something like the Cannes Film Festival, is surreal and brilliant.

Vampires were always able to transform into creatures of the night. The dark creatures like bats have always been associated with vampires and using the darkness to their own advantage.

A guy's biggest style mistake is definitely trying to look too cool. As long as you've got a good pair of jeans, a good pair of boots and a few good shirts, you're fine.

The truth of the matter is roles like James Bond are the ones that I look up to as probably the best roles ever to play. So that's probably my ultimate goal one day: to play James Bond.

From the big mountains in the north to the valleys in the south, all through my childhood and teenage years, my family would always holiday in Wales.

I love to sit down on a beanbag at the end of the day and watch my fish. It's therapeutic, isn't it? They're alive, and I'm keeping them alive. I like the responsibility.

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.

The first time I was flown to L.A. for a screen test was an incredibly nerve-racking experience.

I think the best directors provide you with a safe environment where they can instill you with confidence and allow you to try things out and not feel like you're failing or that you're doing it wrong.

Voices are always a challenge. I always have to work at each accent I do.

I'd like to make a film musical. That's really my dream.

In 10 years, I'd love to live near the sea, in a warmer climate. I could see myself with three dogs... and it'd be great to share them with someone else.

I really loved 'Fast Five.' I thought it was a brilliant movie. I thought it was so well done, well directed. The action sequences were really well thought out. It looked fantastic.

I've had letters from people who have read my articles and said, 'I'm a guy, I'm 18, and I've not come out to my mom and dad yet, but it was so nice to hear your story, and you know, I wish your article would have been longer, because you gave me hope for the future.'

My mother did like to make clothes, and in I think the worst picture I've ever seen of myself - I must have been eight or nine - she'd dressed me in a matching t-shirt and Bermuda shorts ensemble which I think looked like somebody had thrown up all over it. I was so glad when that sewing machine stopped working, I have to say.

Everybody knows about Peter Jackson, 'The Hobbit' movies and 'The Lord of the Rings' films being made in New Zealand, and to actually have been part of it for such a long period, to live there and to have friends that I will have for life because of that experience, is an amazing thing.

I think heroes are the people that go into houses when they're on fire and save people in hospitals.

Most men have an insecurity of some sort. But we're brought up to believe that we can't show them.

The Sixties was all about style and a certain look. But what was interesting about 1963 was that it was pre-Beatles, so the clothes of that time, especially the suits, were very different from the clothes post-Beatlemania.

You have to have a lot of money to go to college. It's not cheap.

And I love to cook! I've impressed hundreds of women with my cooking. And they always come back for more.

The Desolation of Smaug' stands alone as an action/adventure epic movie. It's visually stunning, and the 3D is incredible. Plus, it's directed by Peter Jackson, and he's extraordinary.

The percentage of people that go to drama college in the U.K. is probably just like anywhere in the world. It's a very hard business to work in. They say that, at any one time, there's only 5% of actors in the world that are actually working and getting paid, which is a shocking percentage, really.

I research the role, and if it's a literary character, I read the book, and if it's an historical figure, I research documents and biographies. If it's a fictional character, I work off the script.

If you train too much, it can rule your life, and I don't think that's healthy - for men or women.

I don't need to be super-ripped all year round. That's a pretty miserable way to live your life.

If I have to look a certain way for something, I know how long it's going to take me do it.

I look in the mirror, and I don't mind what I see.

I've dabbled in period films in my career, and I've enjoyed each one.

I don't comment on other people's opinion.

I just love the sound of a black woman's voice.

If you're gonna start a story, you start from the beginning, right?

When I'm training hard, the diet is miserable.

Everybody knew me as a gay man, and in my life in London, I never tried to hide.

You never get over an ex, but you learn to live with it.

It's just hard to get an independent film made.

Good suits don't come from anywhere, though - I mainly wear Armani, Louis Vuitton and Burberry.

I always find cardio the most monotonous. Running on a treadmill shows me why hamsters are so crazy.

I come from south Wales. A place called Aberbargoed.

Wales is blessed with some truly magnificent castles, full of history and a must see for visitors.

One funny thing is, though, I wear my watch on my right hand and I'm actually right-handed. People always wonder why - I don't know myself, I've just always done it that way and I like it the way a good watch fits on my right wrist.

It was very weird because for a long time no one really recognised me from my films, but 'The Hobbit' has totally changed that, and I've had some really special moments, especially with youngsters.

People come up to me in pubs - gay pubs, mind you - and can't believe that I'm gay.

It's a lot of fun being dressed by designers and surrounded by publicists.

A longbow takes a massive draw for the arrow to go anywhere.

I think sandals should be burnt. I hate them - purge them!

I had a role in 'Crossroads' when I was about 21, and then I went on to perform in 'Small Change' and then 'Piaf' in the Donmar Warehouse, London, and it was when I was there that some casting directors spotted me.

I'm not a 'Twilight' boy; I'll never be as good looking as those lads, and that's fair enough.

In all honesty, I should have given up this acting lark years ago.

Living in New Zealand, it's like a different world - it is a different world. It's very, very cool.

I've had some pretty awful jobs that I don't miss, like working on a nightclub door, or compiling VIP lists at 3 A.M. in the morning, but sometimes it's just got to be done.

The gym is somewhere you can go to just forget for an hour what you do for a living, what you are doing on a daily basis. You just turn up and get on with it.

To me, growing up in South Wales, a pair of Diesel jeans were the thing to have - if you could afford them.

The fascination for the Great Train Robbery has never diminished.

I think starting a cinema career late in life has more advantages than disadvantages.

One thing Tolkien does incredibly well - and this is from a lay person's point of view; I am not scholar or anything - is that you don't have to make an effort to envisage the worlds that he writes about.

A watch is a fashion statement, and it says something about the person wearing it.

For my part, if the audience wanted to see Dracula again, I would be happy to reprise the role. It is an immortal character that can appear anywhere because it lies beyond time. Possibilities are endless.

I wouldn't say being in a film with The Rock was 'motivating.' 'Terrifying' would be a more accurate description.

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.

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.

It's good for people to look at me and think, 'This guy is doing his thing and enjoying what he's doing and successful at it and living his life.' And that's what I'm doing, and I'm very happy.

I have seen 'Fast Six,' and it's awesome.

I had a very difficult upbringing.

Peter Jackson is a wonderful man. He's a great director. He's found his niche in life.

When I didn't get a job, I thought, 'Don't worry, there'll be another one.' I still live by that now. Nothing really fazes me any more.

Directing is something I've sort of always felt like I'd like to do at one point and I thought the best way to start it is to write something myself or with someone and I'd go from there.

Each form of the acting is different. I think it keeps your mind active. TV, film and theater are different disciplines, as are independent films, opposed to studio films. There are differences in the size and the genre, or a period drama as opposed to a contemporary drama, or the types of characters.

Every film, every fight choreographer, wants to have a different flair, have a different fight technique. So any film I've done that involved weapons has always been fascinating because everyone is different.

Everybody has a down day, no one's perfect; no one's having the most idyllic life. I mean, I guess everybody wants to project positivity to the outside world, but if we're honest, no one's going to have 24/7 bliss.

I always wanted to sing, as a child.

I do love action films and I hope I'm going to do many more and learn lots of new crafts 'cause that's the joy of movies.

I do not comment on my client's personal lives in the media. As for Luke, he did so once, a long time ago when he was an inexperienced, young actor and now with maturity and hindsight, he has learned not to engage the press in his personal life again.

I don't think a lot of people know that I can sing. It's not common knowledge.

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.

I never followed a band, I never followed a - nothing. I think maybe it's because my mom and dad were not like that, and it was just me and mom and dad. We were very close; we spent a lot of time just together, just enjoying each other's company.

I never had a magazine, I never listened to a certain band. Actually, I was listening to bands from the '60s and '70s with my dad, so I knew more about The Beatles than I did about what was topical in my life.

I probably wanted to be a shopkeeper, because I like tills.

I started doing [acting] for a living, no one really warned me about the amount of traveling I would do. I always thought everything was shot in Los Angeles.

I stay away from Speedos. That would cause me absolutely unnecessary publicity.

I think I sort of realized it was an international thing when we went to South Korea for The Fast [and the Furious] 6 premiere. We knew nothing about South Korea, and we came through the sliding doors [at the airport] with my luggage and there were like 60 fans with Luketeer banners: "We're your Korea Luketeers." It was like, wow, this is amazing.

I think it's a slippery slope to fabricate a different life.

I think my dream would have been to be a solo artist. But it didn't work out like that, and I also love to sing lots of musical stuff; I was really good at that, I've got a big voice. I dropped into musical theater and really enjoyed it and I sang for about nine years of my career.

I think the best directors rarely loose their temper. I think the best directors provide you with a safe environment where they can instill you with confidence and allow you to try things out and not feel like your failing or that you're doing it wrong.

If you look weird, you can blame the role, you know? So no one's going to tell me I'm having a mid-life crisis.

If you work with amazing actors, you've got a master class happening in front of you. But [also] it's just acting at the end of the day.

I'll tell you a little fun fact about the film, though. Me, the little boy playing Chip, Emma Thompson, and Emma Watson, all have the same birthday. We were all in on the same day and they all sang us "Happy Birthday." That will never happen in my life again: Four of us having the same birthday on the same film, and we're all in on the same day. It was an extraordinary thing.

I'm an only child. My mum and dad are six in each family. They're both twins, and they only wanted one. I always say to them though that they're lucky - it could have all gone wrong.

I'm not saying every musical theater actor can do film or television, but a lot of them can. A lot of them are brilliant actors who absolutely don't need to sing to prove their ability and don't get the opportunity.

I'm quite good at switching off and sometimes I forget who I am in a character.

I'm very, very close to my mum and dad. My mum is only nineteen years older than me, so she could be my older sister, which is really nice.

It must be weird having one child.

It's just nice to do something a bit different, and I guess when you're an actor, you have the license to do that.

It's never the practice to shoot the scenes in the proper order. Sometimes you shoot the final scenes of a film before you've even started the beginning. So you get good at it because you have to sort of just eliminate the memories of something you've done as an actor, which you haven't done as the character yet. But it sometimes is a bit of a mind-f**k.

It's nice to be part of something that could grow into something else and be there at the beginning of it.

It's quite clear if you look at the actors in film right now, some of them came from theater but they didn't come from musical theater. There's still a bit of a stigma attached to it I would say.

I've always been quite good at watching someone do something and then picking it up, so I turned that talent to watching people on the film set, and just saw how small everything was and how intimate the scenes could be.

I've traveled everywhere, and it's been amazing. I used to think taking a flight was kind of a big deal, you know? I'm from the valleys of South Wales and when my family used to go on holiday, it was a big thing. Packing the bags, checking in, not losing your passport, going through customs, the X-ray machine, all that stuff used to be quite an intense thing. Now it's like catching a bus, I don't even think about it.

Look at social media. It's what we do, right?

Not everybody's a great singer, but people can get better at singing. There's great singing teachers out there. It's a muscle, you just have to train it.

On Broadway and in the United States it's very different - people crossover all the time into television. I think that we'll get there [in London] in the end, but it has to start with who comes to see you in the musical and whether they can see beyond the dancing and the singing.

Sometimes I comment, but you have to be careful because if you do it for one, everybody wants you to say something.

Sometimes it's not about the size of your role, it's about the machine that you're part of.

The best night of my life was watching the moon turn red on an island .I think it was called the blood moon and it happens like once every - I don't know how long, but it was a beautiful night. It was a very magical moment.

There's always a connection to be made whether you're playing a psychopath or whatever. It doesn't really matter; you've got to find this thing that you relate to with each character otherwise you're missing something.

Well usually if I'm having a sh***y day, I don't post anything. I don't go out just to tell everyone I'm having a great day, even if I'm not.

When I was playing Dracula I had to switch off from the reality and fall into this fantasy world. Otherwise I just couldn't cope with what I was doing. It's about switching off. It is about trying to flick a switch, which you have to do.