Childhood & Early Life
Rupert Evans was born on March 9, 1976, in Staffordshire, England, and raised in a farming family on a remote farm in Stowe-by-Chartley, near Stoke-on-Trent.
His grandparents reared and raised livestock on their farm, but by the time Rupert came along, they had stopped rearing animals, and grew wheat for the popular British breakfast cereal company ‘Weetabix’.
Evans is the eldest of his three siblings. Hyperactive as a child, he was often made to run around the farm or involved in physical activities to burn out any excess energy to make sure he did not hurt himself, which was a frequent occurrence. His younger brother is a well-known DJ for ‘Heart FM’ in Brighton.
Evans went to the ‘Bilton Grange School’, an independent boarding school in Dunchurch village, near Rugby, Warwickshire, before moving to ‘Milton Abbey School’ in Dorset, England. It was in a school production of ‘Peter Pan’ at age eight that he was first bitten by the acting bug. He also played ‘Dorothy’ in a school production of ‘The Wizard of Oz’.
He was not much interested in academics and only managed to scrape through with three ‘A’ levels (a British high school leaving qualification). Evans briefly went into the field of advertising, working as assistant to the account manager for the ‘My Little Pony’ franchise before making it to the ‘Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art’ in South Kensington, London, where he received his professional training as an actor.
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Career
Soon after graduating from the ‘Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art’, Evans started his acting career on television with single-episode appearances in series such as ‘High Stakes’ (2001), ‘My Family’ (2001), and ‘Lexx: The Dark Zone Stories’ (2002), which led to recurring roles in ‘Paradise Heights’ (2002) and ‘Rockface’ (2002-03).
In 2002, Evans was cast as a student in the John Simm starrer drama ‘Crime and Punishment’. He acted in the 2013 TV movie ‘Sons & Lovers’, which also starred Sarah Lancashire and Hugo Speer. The same year he appeared on the stage in the play ‘Sweet Panic’.
Evans’ first major film was Guillermo del Toro directed ‘Hellboy’, in 2004. He played the role of FBI Agent John Myers in this cinematic adaption of the graphic novel ‘Hellboy: Seed of Destruction’ by Mike Mignola. The film did well at the box office and was well-received by critics. In 2004, he landed a recurring part on the BBC TV mini-series ‘North and South’ starring Richard Armitage.
In 2005, he appeared on ‘Fingersmith’, a BBC drama by Sarah Waters starring Imelda Staunton and Charles Dance. The same year, he also played ‘Zander’ in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for the TV mini-series ‘ShakespeaRe-Told’, and acted in the award-winning play ‘Breathing Corpses’ by Laura Wade.
In 2006, Evans appeared in two major productions of the ‘Royal Shakespeare Company’ – ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘King John’. The following year, he was cast in another play ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ with the ‘Donmar Warehouse Theatre’. He also played the role of ‘Ali/Jeb’ in the Vicente Penarrocha film ‘Guantanamero’, in the same year.
Over the next few years Evans appeared on both stage and television. He had a recurring role as King Richard IV on the television series ‘The Palace’ in 2008. In 2009, he portrayed Frank Churchill on the TV mini-series ‘Emma’. IN 2012, he appeared in the documentary series ‘Dark Matters: Twisted but True’, and played a recurring role in the TV mini-series ‘World Without End’ the same year. He was a part of ‘Donmar Warehouse’s’ production of ‘Life is a Dream’, in 2009.
He also emerged as a voice artist during these years. He lent his voice to different characters in video games, such as ‘Haze’ in 2008, ‘Demon’s Souls’ in 2009, ‘Enslaved: Odyssey to the West’ in 2010, Q.U.B.E in 2011, and ‘Fable: The Journey’ in 2012.
As far as films were concerned, the late 2000s or the start of the next decade didn’t do much for Rupert’s career. He played Gabriel in the short-film, ‘Sidney Turtlebaum’ in 2008; Synesius’ in the period drama ‘Agora’ in 2009; and appeared in a low-key movie ‘This David Conrad’ in 2011. He also acted in two horror films ‘The Incident’, which is also known as ‘Asylum Blackout’, in 2011, and ‘Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter’ in 2012.
Evans received a lot of acclaim for his recurring role of Edmund Allingham in the hugely popular BBC TV series ‘The Village’, in 2013. He stayed with the series for 12 episodes. He appeared as Harold Waring in ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ and acted in the play ‘Fear’ at the Bush Theatre, the same year.
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He became the talk of the town in 2015, with his casting as Frank Frink as a series regular in the post WWII fantasy series on Amazon Prime ‘The Man in the High Castle’ He portrayed the character for three seasons. The 2015 pilot was the most watched ever on Amazon, and promptly got snapped up for 3 seasons. The fourth (final season) was announced in February 2019.
Continuing his streak of horror movies, he played ‘Reeves’ in the British psychological horror film ‘Tank 432’ in 2015 and ‘Malcom’ in ‘The Boy’, in 2016. Evans was cast as ‘Jerry Levov’ the same year in the crime drama ‘American Pastoral’, alongside Ewan McGregor and Jennifer Connally.
He is currently playing the character of Harry Greenwood as a series regular character, who is the ‘Whitelighter of the Charmed Ones’ in The CW series ‘Charmed’, which premiered in 2018. ‘Charmed’ is a reboot of the WB series of the same name that aired during 1998-2006. The series was developed by Jennie Snyder Urman, Jessica O’Toole, and Amy Rardin, and follows the story of three sisters who discover after their mother’s death that they are powerful witches.
Family & Personal Life
In October 2018, Evans revealed in an interview that he is married with a baby, and his wife is an “amazing woman” who gives him immense support during challenging times. Except this, not much is known about his wife as Evans has been tight-lipped about his personal life.
Evans dated fellow Royal Shakespeare Company actress Morven Christie. During an interview, he had admitted that they fell for each other during ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but did not reveal their relationship to anyone till the play was about to open for the season.
A non-smoker and an avid fitness buff, Evans is a regular runner and a practitioner of Hatha Yoga. He is keen on the subject of mental health, especially in the context of men being able to talk about it, which is slowly gaining social acceptance.
Trivia
Evans’ personal interests also include pottery - he is passionate about it to such extent that he always enquires about the origins of the ceramics he comes across in restaurants and hotels.
James Bond movies inculcated in him a passion for gadgets.
During a visit to a game reserve in Zimbabwe, he attempted to stroke the paw of a semi-tamed lioness, thinking he had established a friendly rapport with her. Needless to say, the lioness burst his bubble by unfurling her claws and nicking his leg.
As a young child he used to hate his name, and wished it was a tough sounding one like Jack. He made peace with it later in life, and he didn’t mind the nicknames people often used for him, anymore.
