\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen director Sam Pinkleton began envisioning a Broadway<\/a> revival of The Rocky Horror Show,<\/em> he drew up a list of qualities he believed the lead, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, needed to have.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe had to be a truly tremendous actor. He had to be a real comedian, like a clown. He had to have a killer voice. He had to be terrifying, and also tender,\u201d Pinkleton said. \u201cWe had to be scared of him, and we also had to want to fuck him. I also really felt strongly that it needed to be somebody who carried some kind of queerness with them, whatever that means.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAt first, Pinkleton was unsure who could embody all of that and provide a new take on the role made famous by Tim Curry. But when he met Luke Evans<\/a>, an onscreen action star with a background in musical theater<\/a>, he found a fit in an actor who happily contains his own contradictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tStanding at 6 feet 8 inches in heels, Evans towers above cast members including Stephanie Hsu, Juliette Lewis, Harvey Guill\u00e9n and more, as the mad scientist and head of a paranormal household that has welcomed in two hapless strangers during a rainstorm. Evans is Tony nominated for his Broadway debut in the role, in which he straps on those platform-heeled boots, a corset, a wig and a jock strap to play the pleasure-seeking icon.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYou don\u2019t take on a role like Frank, and expect to be covered up,\u201d Evans quips.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe\u2019s enjoying the spectacle of Broadway, as well as the recognition it can bring, including a fan recently yelling out from a restaurant asking if he still had a corset on. But Dr. Frank-N-Furter is also a role that Evans never had on his bucket list.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t even think I possibly could pull it off, to be honest, but I did get excited about the fact that, I love a challenge,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThis comes even though Evans trained in musical theater in college and then took on a number of leading West End roles including in Miss Saigon<\/em> and Rent,<\/em> before landing film roles in Clash of the Titans<\/em>, the Fast and the Furious <\/em>franchise, Immortals, Dracula Untold, The Hobbit<\/em> and more. While he had some early success in theater, it wasn\u2019t paying the rent, and Evans almost left the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was ready to give it up and find a new career and do something else, which I was happily going to do. I\u2019m sure I would have been very sad not to be performing, because that\u2019s the only thing I ever wanted to do. But there wasn\u2019t stability, there wasn\u2019t a financial security, there wasn\u2019t a guarantee of a next job,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHis fortunes changed after he starred in the 2008 production of Small Chang<\/em>e, a play about two Welsh boys at London\u2019s Donmar Warehouse \u2013 a role he was cast in after writing a note to the director, describing his own upbringing in Wales and asking to be seen. That play led to Evans signing with an agent, and later flying to Los Angeles, where he went through a succession of cold reads and meetings with directors.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI started playing dads and strong masculine roles and\/or masculine-presenting men. And there seemed to be a place for me, and so it just worked out, and it was crazy,\u201d Evans said. \u201cI would say, at least, for six years, I felt like I was either on a plane or on a film set, and there was nothing else between them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn those early days, Evans, who did not have prior film training, said he suffered from imposter syndrome.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI definitely felt like they\u2019re going to find out in a minute, and they\u2019re going to be like, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, we\u2019ve made a huge mistake. Can you leave?\u2019 But it never happened, and the jobs kept coming in,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n