Luke Evans is a different type of Hollywood action hero. Our cover star for the Summer edition of City AM The Magazine talks to Adam Bloodworth about redefining the macho man, and feeling sexier than ever in his forties

Luke Evans starts his day with a skinny dip every morning. His home in Ibiza is a short walk from the beach, where he dumps whatever he’s thrown on and surrenders himself to the ocean.

Clothed, at least for now, he’s Zooming from The White Isle to plug his racy summer fashion range. Featuring skimpy short-shorts, the pieces would certainly turn heads in his Welsh hometown of Pontypool. If his character Owen Shaw in The Fast and the Furious wore the type of hyper-masculinised garms that helped him blend in, Evans’ new collection is all about standing out.

Hollywood’s only openly gay macho man laments that he has to vacate this paradise tomorrow as part of the launch: “I’m always very reluctant to leave the island,” he says glumly.

Luke Evans is one of Wales’ most famous exports, and has starred in dozens of Hollywood movies – but life wasn’t always like this. Born into a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, he came out aged 19, leading to him being ostracised from the religion that had shaped his life. Last year, he wrote about his internalised shame in his memoir, Boy From the Valleys: My Unexpected Journey.

But we’re not here to talk about that. Evans wants to tell me about his short-shorts. In promotional pictures for his nascent fashion brand, a soaking wet tee-shirt rests precisely upon his junk. The image, branded a ‘thirst trap’ by the tabloids, perfectly evokes Evans’ Ibiza lifestyle. Rather than part of a fashion shoot, it was taken as an afterthought one blissful Ibiza afternoon.

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“What makes me laugh is there was a gay magazine talking about the pics the other day, saying ‘Luke Evans wearing skimpy swimwear,’” he says. “I was like, who’s written this, some old lady from Cheltenham? The pictures are just beautiful. My mum thought they were fantastic. My dad said ‘I don’t think I’ll ever wear a Speedo.’ I said ‘That’s okay dad, we’re going to make a longer short for the older man and the men that are not so brave.’”

Evans runs BDXY with his partner Fran Tomas and the stylist Christopher Brown. They sell bucket hats, tote bags, scented candles, tees, and plenty of briefs. His face brightens whenever he mentions it. “It’s such a departure from learning lines and going to the far flung reaches of the world to film a movie or a TV show.”

There are no other openly LGBTQ men in Hollywood playing the types of action roles he inhabits so well. Not that he thinks about it much

Interestingly, early sales show women wear the tees as much as men, “which is wonderful,” beams Evans. He says the brand’s message is that everyone deserves to feel sexy: “The letters B, D, X and Y come from the words bold and sexy. These are very strong, powerful, confident, identifying words. You can feel bold and sexy in shorts and tee-shirt or swimwear or a tuxedo or absolutely nothing at all.”

Before his life balancing skinny dips with international film shoots, Evans spent his twenties house sharing in London and working intermittently in theatre. Things were going well, but not blisteringly so. At 30 his agent warned him against auditioning for a lead role in the Donmar Warehouse production of Small Change because they thought it was too ambitious. But Evans wrote directly to the casting director and landed the role.

A better agent followed and in 2010 he was cast in leading roles in five Hollywood movies including Clash of the Titans, Robin Hood and Tamara Drewe. It was the era that began to shape Luke Evans as we know him today.

“I possibly wouldn’t be an actor right now if I hadn’t got that job. So many things domino effected after that. Sometimes to push the needle you have to take the bull by the horns.” Giving life advice doesn’t come naturally – his inclination is to laugh at how corny this all sounds. “My internal dialogue is ‘What have you got to lose?’ A bit of ego maybe. Egos are as fragile as a rose, you’ve got to look after it, but a couple of petals are gonna fall off every now and again.”

Evans is the sort of actor whose roles are bigger than his name. He says he picks them based on whether they “bring something new, different and challenging to the screen.” There was Disney’s 2017 Beauty and the Beast, in which his Gaston was so warmly received that a spin-off prequel is rumoured; his critically-acclaimed turn as Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit trilogy; he was the titular hero in a rather shonky Dracula Untold. Then, of course, there is The Fast and Furious, the heist franchise exhaustingly dragged out over 14 (14!) feature films. They’re unlikely to titillate beyond their core audiences but their success is beyond doubt.