Luke Evans is exhausted.
“Just talking about it brings back those cold days…when I was fighting 70 stunt guys with a broomstick as a sword,” said the actor of “Dracula Untold,” his first studio feature as a leading man.
Though we were on the phone to discuss that film's upcoming Blu-ray release, there's certainly a lot more for Evans be tired about – since taking on his first major role in the 2010 fantasy actioner “Clash of the Titans,” he's starred in a string of high-profile Hollywood films, from Paul W.S. Anderson's “Three Musketeers” to “Immortals” to “Fast and Furious 6” to the last two installments of Peter Jackson's epic “Hobbit” trilogy. So how did it feel to finally have his name above the title?
“I was ready for it,” said Evans, calling from the set of his latest film. “I've been working super hard for the last eight years to get this opportunity, and when [it] finally came, I was ready for it. …it was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I loved every second of it, and it was a real accomplishment for me, and it was nice to see it do very well.”
Well enough for a sequel? “Untold” brought in a healthy $215 million worldwide – nearly 75 percent of that total from international territories – but a followup is far from a sure thing given the film's rather steep $70 million budget. Nevertheless, Evans indicated there are “conversations going on” about both a proper followup (“I'd be very happy to put the fangs back,” he said) and how the film may potentially fit in to the reboot of the studio's beloved Universal's Monsters franchise.
“There's the monsters universe concept, and there's a lot of people involved in bringing that to life. I think it's a very exciting idea, and I think it would be very fun to bring Dracula back to life in a different time period, with a very different storyline,” said Evans.
As for “Untold's” upcoming Blu-ray release, I asked Evans whether we could expect to see Samantha Barks' turn as the folkloric witch Baba Yaga in the disc's deleted scenes – an element of the film that ultimately hit the cutting room floor.
“I don't know the answer to that question,” he admitted. “I would hope so, because everything that didn't make the film wasn't becuase it wasn't good, it was because…the narrative of the film, and the pace of it, it got cut. But some of that stuff was incredible…visually amazing. So I hope.”
“Dracula Untold” hits Blu-ray and DVD February 3.