Post by annee on Aug 29, 2006 0:24:19 GMT -5
This article is from the Evening Standard Magazine, Friday 12th September 2003. Alice was promoting Blackball.
I think it is really interesting and sweet.
I haven't got a scanner so it is typed. Hope thats ok?!
"ALICE IN LOVE"
Alice Evans is one of those girls who give the impression of being dazzlingly successful, from the outside at least. She is the modelturned-actress who, very publicly, lived for six years in Paris with Olivier Picasso, the grandson of the painter (he announced in one interview that they were 'a brand, like Coca-Cola'). He used to give her the Prada and Gucci catalogues at the start of each season so she could order key pieces, and the French press went nuts over the fact that this ordinary, comprehensive school-educated English girl from Bristol had landed one of France's most eligible bachelors. But in 2000 she began to wonder aloud in interviews if their backgrounds weren't too different, and the following year she left him for Ioan Gruffudd, the Welsh actor from Hornblower and The Forsyte Saga. The pair got engaged almost instantly and seemed to sail into the sunset.
But things weren't that simple. In the past two years, Evans has been distressed over the death of her mother, who died four years ago, the breakup with Picasso and her father's decision to marry a girl not much older than herself (Evans is 32). This wedding was taking place the day we met, which is why she arrived late at the Groucho Club to meet me. 'I just had a huge argument with her outside, on my mobile,' she says, trying to put a brave face on it, but it was obvious she's upset.
All of which might explain why her own engagement to Gruffudd seems to be on hold.
The couple moved to Los Angeles six months ago to pursue their acting careers (Evans' biggest credit is playing Glenn Close's probation officer in 102 Dalmatians) and bought a three-bedroom house in West Hollywood. But they weren't engaged, she corrects flatly.
'No. That's a no-go area at the moment,' she says sotto voce.
'But,' she goes on gamely, 'we're very happy and we've got this lovely house. Except,' and her face falls, 'he's just got the King Arthur film in Ireland for five months. So we were going to have this lovely summer together, barbecuing and everything, and then he went, "Honey, I'm off to Ireland!"' 'She's an amazing girl. I love her to pieces,' Gruffudd enthused after they met, and you can see why. Evans is transparently honest.
Wearing a deep V-necked white T-shirt from French Connection and blue jeans, in person she isn't the drop-dead beauty of photographs: she looks reassuringly normal with her muddy hazel eyes and yellow hair pulled back into a clip. What strikes me is how much she looks like Julia Roberts: she has the same full lips and way of gathering and holding sadness in her face.
When she is talking about something that upsets her, it goes dark and pinched-looking. It happens when she talks about her mother. 'It's just sad,' she says, of this, 'because she worked her arse off in a comprehensive school and died two weeks after she retired, and she was looking forward to so many things, and that annoys the hell out of me! And it's funny: you'd think death would bring people together, but it doesn't. You see, nobody can help you after a death, and they never will. And I think frustration happens when people realise that your nearest and dearest can't help you and get irritated and think, "Why's she not over it?"' She looks away. 'And it's been difficult with my father remarrying. (Her father David is professor of applied mathematics at Bristol University.) But I don't want to lose him as a father, or as a friend. We're trying to keep our reality hats on, and I'm happy for him. But we spent a year and a half on the phone every night and then of course he meets somebody else and he's not calling at all. But that's' she bites her lip, 'my problem, not his. I have to safeguard my peace of mind at the moment and realise that nothing's permanent. It does feel as if anything can happen.' In her relationship, as well? I ask, but she shakes her head.
'No, I think this is my man. As far as I'm concerned. I mean, he could meet somebody tomorrow. But I've always been a one-man woman. I'm not interested in men, really. I get a boyfriend and keep him. I've never had a one-night stand.' She grins more cheerfully and leans forward. 'The other day I was talking about girls coming on to me, because I had this weird experience, and one of my friends said, "It's because you're not interested in men." And it's true, at parties, all I do is look for a girl to chat to.'
Having lived a prematurely grownup existence with Picasso in his stuffy Quai Voltaire flat, trailing to posh dinners with his friends, Evans has gone the other way with Gruffudd. When the couple are in London, they share his house in Kilburn with the actor Matthew Rhys and whoever's passing, and in the evenings they get takeaway or go to the pub. I get the impression that while she was bored sick of Olivier's formality and control-freakery 'I suddenly realised I wasn't 40! That I could do things like get pissed!' she was having to adjust the other way with Gruffudd and Rhys. 'It is a bit of a shocker,' she admits.
'You get to a certain age and it's not what you expect. But those Welsh boys have very nice, easygoing personalities, and I grew up with two brothers. Sometimes I hear them downstairs, and I'm thinking, "Why is Matthew making a noise like a fire engine? Why is Ioan making a noise that car beeps make?" I say, "What are you doing?" and they go, "Fire engines, of course!"' She giggles. 'I'm on my own with Matthew at the moment, and it's like living with a brother. If he's getting a takeaway he'll bring something back for me, and it's really sweet, it's like, "Who's got any washing? Whose knickers are these?"' I ask if it's true that Olivier gave her the Gucci and Prada catalogues every season, and Evans shakes her head in amazement. 'It seems like a dream now. He used to say, "Right I want you to tick things off, especially the shoes, because the shoes go very quickly," and I'd go and see my best friend, and roll my eyes and go, "F*****g hell!"
And she'd go, "You can't complain, Alice, most people would give their eye teeth to do that."
And I'd go, "But you don't understand!"' She thrusts her hand through her hair. 'Because it did feel very, very claustrophobic! There's something about yearning for a pair of shoes all year and finding them in the sale in your size!' Better to travel hopefully than arrive, I suggest, and Evans sits up, electrified. 'That's exactly my motto! You see, it's the hope! Life is all about hope, and you know why so many millionaires commit suicide when they inherit? Because there's no struggle! Attainment is not what we think it is.
I've really learned that.' So she is busy struggling in LA. While Picasso would have been happy to have her shop all day in Paris using his credit card, she is living in a house with no pool to save money, and spending her days trekking to auditions. She is very serious about acting she says she got obsessed by it living with Picasso. And she has actually made ten films, though most of them are in French or Italian, and in this country she is still mainly known for the TV drama of three years ago, Best of Both Worlds (she played a woman with two separate lives and lovers which probably reflected what was going on in her head at the time).
But her latest film, Blackball, will raise her profile. Directed by Mel Smith, it stars Paul Kaye, and is a comedy about lawn bowls. 'I know,' Evans says, grinning. 'But a lot of people I've told about this film have gone, "My God! My mother's obsessed with them!" Or my grandmother.
Everybody in England seems secretly into bowls.' It was on the set of her big American movie, 102 Dalmatians, that she met Gruffudd. She did the test for it just after learning that her mother had died. 'And he was so nice to me. She had a heart attack and 12 hours later I was at Shepperton doing a screen test and I hadn't even seen my father yet. I was just a zombie. Ioan was told what had happened much later on, and he couldn't get over the fact that he hadn't known and how awful it must have been, so he was very gentle and very around.' Was it love at first sight? She giggles. 'No! He didn't really seem like boyfriend material! He's two years younger than me, and he seems a lot younger than that. He did then, anyway. And it takes me for ever to realise that somebody might be attractive. And then they might do something, and I go, "Oh, you're quite good-looking!"' Did he know more quickly that he liked her? 'I don't know,' she says honestly. 'Boys being boys, they won't talk about that sort of thing. When you go, "Ooh, can we talk about when we met?" He's like, "Why?"' She grins wryly.
Ironically, now that she is finally making a breakthrough career-wise, she is starting to get broody. 'But things are just very up and down at the moment,' she remarks. 'I think we do have to sit down and' she sighs. 'But you can't say, "We'll stay in LA," because then you get a job in Thailand, or somewhere. One day I'll get to an age when I have to think about having children before it's too late. But I think I'll probably always have a very complicated life. Someone read my palm when I was 18, and said: "Happy but very complicated."
I suppose one day I'll want to go to sleep in the same house every night and have a family. But for the moment, I can't.'
I think it is really interesting and sweet.
I haven't got a scanner so it is typed. Hope thats ok?!
"ALICE IN LOVE"
Alice Evans is one of those girls who give the impression of being dazzlingly successful, from the outside at least. She is the modelturned-actress who, very publicly, lived for six years in Paris with Olivier Picasso, the grandson of the painter (he announced in one interview that they were 'a brand, like Coca-Cola'). He used to give her the Prada and Gucci catalogues at the start of each season so she could order key pieces, and the French press went nuts over the fact that this ordinary, comprehensive school-educated English girl from Bristol had landed one of France's most eligible bachelors. But in 2000 she began to wonder aloud in interviews if their backgrounds weren't too different, and the following year she left him for Ioan Gruffudd, the Welsh actor from Hornblower and The Forsyte Saga. The pair got engaged almost instantly and seemed to sail into the sunset.
But things weren't that simple. In the past two years, Evans has been distressed over the death of her mother, who died four years ago, the breakup with Picasso and her father's decision to marry a girl not much older than herself (Evans is 32). This wedding was taking place the day we met, which is why she arrived late at the Groucho Club to meet me. 'I just had a huge argument with her outside, on my mobile,' she says, trying to put a brave face on it, but it was obvious she's upset.
All of which might explain why her own engagement to Gruffudd seems to be on hold.
The couple moved to Los Angeles six months ago to pursue their acting careers (Evans' biggest credit is playing Glenn Close's probation officer in 102 Dalmatians) and bought a three-bedroom house in West Hollywood. But they weren't engaged, she corrects flatly.
'No. That's a no-go area at the moment,' she says sotto voce.
'But,' she goes on gamely, 'we're very happy and we've got this lovely house. Except,' and her face falls, 'he's just got the King Arthur film in Ireland for five months. So we were going to have this lovely summer together, barbecuing and everything, and then he went, "Honey, I'm off to Ireland!"' 'She's an amazing girl. I love her to pieces,' Gruffudd enthused after they met, and you can see why. Evans is transparently honest.
Wearing a deep V-necked white T-shirt from French Connection and blue jeans, in person she isn't the drop-dead beauty of photographs: she looks reassuringly normal with her muddy hazel eyes and yellow hair pulled back into a clip. What strikes me is how much she looks like Julia Roberts: she has the same full lips and way of gathering and holding sadness in her face.
When she is talking about something that upsets her, it goes dark and pinched-looking. It happens when she talks about her mother. 'It's just sad,' she says, of this, 'because she worked her arse off in a comprehensive school and died two weeks after she retired, and she was looking forward to so many things, and that annoys the hell out of me! And it's funny: you'd think death would bring people together, but it doesn't. You see, nobody can help you after a death, and they never will. And I think frustration happens when people realise that your nearest and dearest can't help you and get irritated and think, "Why's she not over it?"' She looks away. 'And it's been difficult with my father remarrying. (Her father David is professor of applied mathematics at Bristol University.) But I don't want to lose him as a father, or as a friend. We're trying to keep our reality hats on, and I'm happy for him. But we spent a year and a half on the phone every night and then of course he meets somebody else and he's not calling at all. But that's' she bites her lip, 'my problem, not his. I have to safeguard my peace of mind at the moment and realise that nothing's permanent. It does feel as if anything can happen.' In her relationship, as well? I ask, but she shakes her head.
'No, I think this is my man. As far as I'm concerned. I mean, he could meet somebody tomorrow. But I've always been a one-man woman. I'm not interested in men, really. I get a boyfriend and keep him. I've never had a one-night stand.' She grins more cheerfully and leans forward. 'The other day I was talking about girls coming on to me, because I had this weird experience, and one of my friends said, "It's because you're not interested in men." And it's true, at parties, all I do is look for a girl to chat to.'
Having lived a prematurely grownup existence with Picasso in his stuffy Quai Voltaire flat, trailing to posh dinners with his friends, Evans has gone the other way with Gruffudd. When the couple are in London, they share his house in Kilburn with the actor Matthew Rhys and whoever's passing, and in the evenings they get takeaway or go to the pub. I get the impression that while she was bored sick of Olivier's formality and control-freakery 'I suddenly realised I wasn't 40! That I could do things like get pissed!' she was having to adjust the other way with Gruffudd and Rhys. 'It is a bit of a shocker,' she admits.
'You get to a certain age and it's not what you expect. But those Welsh boys have very nice, easygoing personalities, and I grew up with two brothers. Sometimes I hear them downstairs, and I'm thinking, "Why is Matthew making a noise like a fire engine? Why is Ioan making a noise that car beeps make?" I say, "What are you doing?" and they go, "Fire engines, of course!"' She giggles. 'I'm on my own with Matthew at the moment, and it's like living with a brother. If he's getting a takeaway he'll bring something back for me, and it's really sweet, it's like, "Who's got any washing? Whose knickers are these?"' I ask if it's true that Olivier gave her the Gucci and Prada catalogues every season, and Evans shakes her head in amazement. 'It seems like a dream now. He used to say, "Right I want you to tick things off, especially the shoes, because the shoes go very quickly," and I'd go and see my best friend, and roll my eyes and go, "F*****g hell!"
And she'd go, "You can't complain, Alice, most people would give their eye teeth to do that."
And I'd go, "But you don't understand!"' She thrusts her hand through her hair. 'Because it did feel very, very claustrophobic! There's something about yearning for a pair of shoes all year and finding them in the sale in your size!' Better to travel hopefully than arrive, I suggest, and Evans sits up, electrified. 'That's exactly my motto! You see, it's the hope! Life is all about hope, and you know why so many millionaires commit suicide when they inherit? Because there's no struggle! Attainment is not what we think it is.
I've really learned that.' So she is busy struggling in LA. While Picasso would have been happy to have her shop all day in Paris using his credit card, she is living in a house with no pool to save money, and spending her days trekking to auditions. She is very serious about acting she says she got obsessed by it living with Picasso. And she has actually made ten films, though most of them are in French or Italian, and in this country she is still mainly known for the TV drama of three years ago, Best of Both Worlds (she played a woman with two separate lives and lovers which probably reflected what was going on in her head at the time).
But her latest film, Blackball, will raise her profile. Directed by Mel Smith, it stars Paul Kaye, and is a comedy about lawn bowls. 'I know,' Evans says, grinning. 'But a lot of people I've told about this film have gone, "My God! My mother's obsessed with them!" Or my grandmother.
Everybody in England seems secretly into bowls.' It was on the set of her big American movie, 102 Dalmatians, that she met Gruffudd. She did the test for it just after learning that her mother had died. 'And he was so nice to me. She had a heart attack and 12 hours later I was at Shepperton doing a screen test and I hadn't even seen my father yet. I was just a zombie. Ioan was told what had happened much later on, and he couldn't get over the fact that he hadn't known and how awful it must have been, so he was very gentle and very around.' Was it love at first sight? She giggles. 'No! He didn't really seem like boyfriend material! He's two years younger than me, and he seems a lot younger than that. He did then, anyway. And it takes me for ever to realise that somebody might be attractive. And then they might do something, and I go, "Oh, you're quite good-looking!"' Did he know more quickly that he liked her? 'I don't know,' she says honestly. 'Boys being boys, they won't talk about that sort of thing. When you go, "Ooh, can we talk about when we met?" He's like, "Why?"' She grins wryly.
Ironically, now that she is finally making a breakthrough career-wise, she is starting to get broody. 'But things are just very up and down at the moment,' she remarks. 'I think we do have to sit down and' she sighs. 'But you can't say, "We'll stay in LA," because then you get a job in Thailand, or somewhere. One day I'll get to an age when I have to think about having children before it's too late. But I think I'll probably always have a very complicated life. Someone read my palm when I was 18, and said: "Happy but very complicated."
I suppose one day I'll want to go to sleep in the same house every night and have a family. But for the moment, I can't.'
