‘I thought I’d die at Armageddon’: Hollywood action hero Luke Evans on growing up gay as a Jehovah’s Witness
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At the age of 13, Luke Evans faced an impossible choice – either be true to himself and embrace his sexuality, or stay true to God. If he told his Jehovah’s Witness parents that he was gay, they would be honour-bound to inform the church elders, and that would be the end of life as he knew it. If he didn’t tell them, he would be forced into a world of deceit or denial. He chose God.
Evans became the youngest boy in his south Wales congregation to be baptised. He formally and publicly devoted his life to Jehovah. If he came out as gay now, he would be banished from the church. All upstanding members of the congregation, including his mother and father, would be expected to break off contact with him; to act as if he was dead or simply had never existed.
Today, Evans is a Hollywood regular, cast in blockbusters such as Fast and Furious 6; in The Hobbit trilogy as Bard the Bowman; in Tamara Drewe and Blitz as a love interest for Gemma Arterton and Zawe Ashton respectively, and in Immortals as the Greek god Zeus. He is one of few out gay actors cast as straight leading men and action heroes. But what a punishing odyssey he has been on to get there. One that involves running away from home at 16, living the lie that he had always feared, being expelled from his church, and eventually coming out as gay twice – once in the UK when starting out in musical theatre, then years later in Hollywood as a superstar. His life would make a fabulous movie.
Evans has now written his memoir, Boy from the Valleys. It’s a sober title for a remarkable and shocking story. The 45-year-old grew up in Aberbargoed, a tiny town in south Wales that was home to the largest colliery waste tip in Europe. It also contained an improbable number of devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, two of whom were his parents. The way Evans describes his father, David, he could have just as easily been a budding pop star as a young man. “He was the Harry Styles of the Valleys – waif-like, handsome, beautiful skin, with floppy hair,” Evans tells me. On 31 December 1975, David decided to devote himself to Jehovah because he had heard that Armageddon was happening that night, and he wanted to be on the right side. He rushed over to his girlfriend Yvonne to tell her the news. God was about to destroy the wicked, resurrect the dead and transform the Earth back into a paradise where the righteous could live in harmony, free from violence, disease and death.
David and Yvonne turned on the television and waited for an update. Although Armageddon didn’t happen that night, they still became devout Jehovah’s Witnesses. They devoted themselves to God, worshipped at their local Kingdom Hall, married, and in 1979 Luke, their only child, was born. Evans says the three of them were inseparable, which made what was to happen later even more traumatic.
Evans is speaking to me from Portland, Oregon, where he’s currently shooting a film, playing yet another macho man. But for now he’s transported himself back to his childhood. His earliest memories are of knocking on the doors of strangers with his parents, attempting to convert them to the faith.
Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/26/i-thought-id-die-at-armageddon-hollywood-action-hero-luke-evans-on-growing-up-gay-as-a-jehovahs-witness.
