The Dreamboat: Rupert Evans

Rupert Evans recently had the toughest gig of his life. It wasn't playing Romeo for the RSC, darling; it wasn't taking centre stage at the Donmar, sweetie; it wasn't fighting Ron Perlman for the hand of Selma Blair in Hollywood blockbuster Hellboy, baby – all those he's done, no problem. It was reading a Christina Rossetti poem at his friend's wedding.

To be fair, it was one of the smartest weddings of the year, Sophie Winkleman and Freddie Windsor's at Hampton Court's Chapel Royal. He became firm friends with the bride when they played brother and sister in The Palace for the BBC. It was just hard because I cared a lot, I really wanted to get it right for her, and it's always harder when you care, isn't it?' The fact that Princess Michael was right in front of him, glittering with jewels, probably didn't help his nerves either. Then you start reading and it's just like when you're on stage, it's fine. A bizarre calm comes over you.'

Rupert wears jacket with stripe lapel, £989, trousers with stripe down leg, £275, cotton shirt, £192, and wool bow tie, made to order, Wintle (020 7408 2031). Shoes, £950, John Lobb (020 7930 8089)

Rupert Evans, 32, and one of theatre's brightest rising stars, is about to perform at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Dominic West in a new production of Pedro Calderon de la Barca's Spanish classic Life is a Dream. He's playing the Duke of Muscovy (he would love to do varlets or hoodlums but seems to get the nobleman every time). He arrives at our interview wearing dark glasses and a leather jacket, looking intimidatingly like Brad Pitt's cooler younger brother. But that impression is soon dispelled as his natural cheery enthusiasm bubbles over and he tells me how he had a bit of a mishap on the
journey: he swallowed his chewing gum by mistake. He cycled over a sleeping policeman and oops, gulp. That's it, it's in my body for ten years now!' Brad Pitt's klutzy baby brother, then.

He's always been accident-prone, he says, showing me a tapestry of stitches: this from falling off a wall, that from falling through a window And this from tickling a sleepy lion on holiday in Zim-babwe, aged 14. It was so silly of me, I know, but I just wanted to touch a lovely big cat'

There's something adorably trusting about Evans. He was born to a farming family in Staffordshire, near Uttoxeter, in the middle of nowhere. All the cows and pigs had gone long before me – it's hard being a farmer – so by the time I came along it was just boring arable, for Weetabix.' The eldest of three (his very cool' younger brother is now a DJ for Heart FM in Brighton), Rupert was a hyperactive child, sent out to run circuits round the garden and never allowed Coca-Cola. He hasn't heard of Ritalin, an attention deficit disorder drug for hyperactive children, but he's glad it wasn't available in his day. Even now he clearly has lots of energy, shifting round in his seat despite an early morning stint of yoga (Hatha yoga – an important part of my life').

Sometimes, when he was young, he used to pretend to local boys that his name wasn't Rupert, but something tough like Jack. I hated my name, until later I started to think, "Well, I am who I am." Rupert, or Roo, people call me, or Roo-bear, Roops, Doops, whatever. Doops I quite like actually, it makes me sound like a sort of English rapper.'

He was happy at school, Milton Abbey in Dorset, where he played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Wonderful fun except for the night I came on wearing the Red Shoes in Act One by mistake!' He never worked particularly hard academically, scraping three A levels (I got a D, a C and a D, I think') and after a brief foray into advertising – working as assistant to the account manager for My Little Pony – he trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and never looked back.

When I ask who else from his year is still acting, he looks rather sober: Probably 95 per cent of us have stopped working, you know. There's Matthew Goode – Goodie! – who was on the one-year course, but aside from him, well, it's a tough profession, you know.'

Evans' success has been conspicuous, with early breaks in BBC dramas such as Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, Sons & Lovers – the production wasn't praised but his performance as Paul Morel was – and North & South, an Elizabeth Gaskell adaptation that required him to sport
Victorian hair extensions, a look that cost thousands of pounds to achieve. It rather appalled his mother: The TV licence is paying for your hair?'