Luke Evans eclipses his famous co-stars in Beauty and the Beast

ALL the hype has been around Emma Watson playing Belle. But someone else stole the show in Beauty and the Beast. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the Beast.

BEAUTY and the Beast is on track to make all kinds of ridiculous money as it breaks box office record after box office record.

Its global count, so far, is almost a billion dollars. And there’s a lot more where that came from.

But as Emma Watson and a beastly, CGI-ed Dan Stevens sashay their way across that shiny ballroom floor, the romance is not what you’ll take away from the film.

While Watson and Stevens are (just) fine, even if the former’s singing is confined to a limited range and obvious auto-tune, the real star of the live-action remake is Welsh actor Luke Evans.

Evans, as Gaston, steals the movie right out from under the nose of his more famous co-stars with his all-singing, all-dancing and suavely energetic performance.

Luke Evans, what a triumph.

He and Josh Gad (whose presence in anything I usually find somewhere in the range between abrasive and unbearable but is actually great in this) make a magnetic pair that you can’t tear yourself away from.

Any scene they’re in is automatically boosted by 37-year-old Evans’ commanding screen presence. Evans’ Gaston is charming and cheeky — yes, a little bit creepy and a bit of a douche — and up until one particular dastardly action, could easily have been the hero of the film.

Or maybe you just want to root for him because he breathes so much life into an often flat movie.

You would watch the hell of a movie with just these two. True story.

Trained at The London Studio, Evans got his start in West End productions including Rent, Avenue Q and Miss Saigon. So yes, he can belt them out like Hugh Jackman (which made Watson’s limitations more glaring in comparison).

He didn’t get into the movie business until he turned 30, initially with a raft of action/adventure flicks including Clash of the Titans, Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers.

He bagged a role in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit series and was the bad guy in Fast & Furious 6. In the past 12 months he starred alongside fellow Brits Tom Hiddleston in High-Rise and Emily Blunt in The Girl on the Train.

Evans and his elf friend.

Next he’ll be playing William Moulton Marston, the man who created Wonder Woman. Expect his star to rise.

Maybe Evans will get to headline his own Disney live action remake soon — there are, after all, 17 of them in production.

Beauty and the Beast is in cinemas now.

Continue the conversation on Twitter with @wenleima.

Originally published as Luke Evans eclipses his famous co-stars in Beauty and the Beast