Andrea SannaDracula Untold and Beauty and the Beast actor confesses to Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuality
Welsh actor Luke Evans grew up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses and suffered homophobic bullying and religious intolerance at school.
“They made me feel different, dirty, like I was sick,” Evans revealed, describing the school environment as hostile and intolerant. His schoolmates nicknamed him “Jovey Bender”.
“The worst nickname was Jovey bender because it combined two aspects of my identity that could never be reconciled: my homosexuality, which is not allowed in the Jehovah’s religion. It’s a terribly dark place to be a child, knowing that you’re somehow ‘wrong’ but having no idea why or how to fix it. (…) I hated school. Kids can be terribly intolerant, some of them were nasty little bastards. If you are slightly different, you are a target, and I was different in almost every possible way“.
The actor then recalled a particularly painful episode. During a maths lesson, a classmate refused to sit next to him, even though it was the only seat available.
“To be treated that way as a child and made to feel like there’s something wrong with you is so painful, it sticks with you,” and then “I had to keep analysing what it was about me that made them do that. Was it my voice? Was I maybe a bit effeminate?“
