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On the occasion of his 32nd birthday, Luke Evans is set to star as both a Greek god and a French literary legend. Soon to be seen on screen as Zeus in The Immortals and Aramis in The Three Musketeers, the Welsh actor recently celebrated a remarkable year with a party thrown by Dieseland held at the Italian label's spectacular King's Cross offices. Evans was surrounded by family, friends (including Katherine Kingsly, Holly Goodchild and Tonya Meli) as well as Giacomo Nicolodi and Sophia Kokosalaki from Diesel. Here he tells GQ.com about how to lose weight like a deity, how to make small talk with Christoph "Hans Landa" Waltz and what Aramis has in common with Batman...

GQ.com: For The Immortals you completely transformed your physical appearance. How did you lose 33 pounds in three months?
Luke Evans: That was quite intense. I remember turning up on the first day to see 16 stuntmen who had been training for four months already and thinking, "What have I done? I've made a massive mistake here..." But I put my head down and basically got on with it. We had three trainers and did a mixture of chapala yoga and kung fu, gym and so much cardio. I did four or five hours day in, day out for seven weeks. I was like an animal - wake up, train, eat, train, shake, train, sleep. It was full-on.

What was the hardest part of the training?
I always find cardio the most monotonous. Running on a treadmill shows me why hamsters are so crazy. My trainer tried to make things more interesting - once a week, he'd wake me up at seven in the morning and before breakfast we'd run up and down 21 flights of stairs in the hotel three times. Also, you're constantly feeling hungry because you're only eating what your body can burn off - you don't want to store anything. You're just like a processing machine. But we did have our "cheat days" - there was a really good steak restaurant that Henry Cavill and I would frequent once a week. We'd have a great rib-eye steak, chips and couple of pints. We relished it!

What was it like going to comic fair WonderCon for the first time?
Really interesting because these people live for movies and this the only time you get to see them face-to-face. It's quite nice because I come from theatre, so I'm used to immediate interaction, response and seeing them at the stage door. In film you don't get any of that. The fans were very well informed - most of their questions were better than the journalists'. Obviously we had Superman [Cavill] with us as well, which was a highlight...

Are you looking forward to seeing fans dressed up as your Immortals character?
It won't be as interesting as seeing people dressed up as Jedi Knights. I can't see enough overweight Darth Vaders walking around the place.

What did you make of Mickey Rourke?
To be honest I never met him! I met his dogs - they were all over the places. I never had a scene with Mickey. I remember he had an incredibly deep voice, like rolling thunder. Everybody who worked with him thought he was quite the legend.

Are you getting a bit of tired of people comparing The Immortals with Clash Of The Titans?
I can't get too tired as I'm just beginning the press for it now and it only comes out on 11 November 2011. I have to bear with it. People are going to make the comparison - it's Greek mythology - but the finished product is extremely different. It's a very different telling of the story.

You told Movieline that your Apollo originally had a much greater role in Clash Of The Titans. What didn't make it onto the screen?
Actually I think most of those clips are online now... Basically Apollo was more of a mediator between Zeus in Olympus and Perseus on Earth. He played much more of an active role. On paper it was quite an interesting character - but you can see them all on YouTube!

What was the last play you really enjoyed?
Gemma Arterton in "The Master Builder" at the Almeida - she was absolutely brilliant. Ibsen is difficult and quite hard to follow but she just brings the stage to life. There was a great cast as well. I don't see enough theatre. I wanted to go and see "Frankenstein" at the National but I couldn't get a ticket. But I'm off to see Keeley Hawes in "Rocket To The Moon" next week.

On set of The Three Musketeers, how long did you hang out with Christoph Waltz before mentioning Tarantino?
Because Christoph is such a modest, humble man, you feel almost like you can't talk about the work he's done. He's just so normal and an incredibly decent human being. I actually didn't mention it, although I really wanted to. We talked about German politics more than we talked about Tarantino. He's a really good guy - he's got great comic timing.

Did you bond with the other Musketeers?
We trained every day together. I class Ray [Stevenson] and Matthew [Macfadyen] as the brothers I never had now. They're fantastic guys - I hope we get to do a sequel.

What was it like working with James Corden?
He's another good friend of mine now. He plays Planchet, who was our man servant. Basically James was forced to carry all our luggage around on a daily basis and be our general dogsbody. But the guy is hilarious and he was so funny on set.

You described Aramis as a "Casanova" with "cat-like" qualities, which reminds us of Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots in Shrek. How do you reclaim the character from parody?
[Laughs] He comes over as a Batman-esque ninja! He's really stealthy and has a real James Bond style about him. All his stunts are very dramatic. He still has all the attributes we associate with Aramis from the book - Machiavellian qualities, studiousness, a very religious background, loyalty. I used all of that and the help of Paul WS Anderson, who had a very clear idea of what he wanted to be portrayed from each Musketeer and used the technology and choreography to bring it into the 21st century.

Did you study previous cinematic versions of The Three Musketeers?
I didn't study them but I've seen them all. It's one of my favourite stories but I didn't use them too much - it's good to come to a character who has been played before with fresh eyes. It's me playing it, nobody else and I've got to find something that I can bring to the character to make it different. I referred to the book rather than anything else.

Orlando Bloom is a great actor, but he seems quite reserved in the press. What's he like on set?
He's great guy and we hung out a lot. We got to know each other - you have to on set or else you're going to be very lonely. He's a really decent man - he's got a little boy now, I hear. Miranda Kerr is absolutely lovely. She was very pregnant when we were shooting The Three Musketeers. They are a sweet couple.

We've seen 3D used and abused by directors. What excites you about about it?
The technology we were using on Musketeers was the Vince Pace/James Cameron technology that was developed for Avatar. We're using the most advanced technology that there is right now, in a film you would not expect it to be used on. It really does benefit. I am not so sure about post-3D conversion anymore - I think that has a lifespan and it's coming to an end. As an actor though it doesn't make any difference - although it was quite funny sitting there in period costume with glasses on, watching a big plasma screen...

What are you reading at the moment?
I'm actually half way through The Amateur American by J Saunders Elmore, which is the film I'm doing later this year. The book is very different to the sсript - it's way more political - but it's great to have more reference. I'm meeting the director soon [Ross Katz] who is apparently a character in his own right. It's a really great story.

What's the status of the horror film No One Lives which you've been linked to?
It's another very interesting story. I'd love to do it but it's getting all the scheduling and all that stuff to happen. It's a brilliant sсript and it's a horror/thriller, which is a genre I've never stepped into. It's just hard to get an independent film made. I don't want to talk about it because I'll jinx it.

How did you come to get involved with Diesel?
I met Giacomo Nicolodi in Cannes last year when I was there promoting Tamara Drewe. I was at a party and we got introduced. To me, growing up in South Wales, a pair of Diesel jeans were the thing to have - if you could afford them. I didn't own a pair till I was in my twenties. I mentioned this to Giacomo and a couple of weeks later I was invited to a dinner when I met Renzo Rosso and [Diesel Black Gold designer] Sophia Kokosalaki. I love their clothes and the people who work for Diesel are fantastic. I was lucky enough to go to their fashion show, which had everything from pair of distressed jeans to a suit. You can always tell a pair of Diesel jeans - the cut, the fit, the look - and you can never get bored when you go into a Diesel store. Renzo is incredible - whenever I'm in his company, he's so inspirational to be around. He's got this energy, he surrounds himselves with good people and they're Italians - so they're fantastic.

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Luke Evans is sat alone at Soho Beach House, pondering a purchase that would have made a lot more sense in modern day Miami than mid-Nineties Cardiff. "I remember spending over £100 on a pair of sunglasses, which was an extortionate amount of money to be spending in Wales in 1996." The 33 year old has a busy year ahead of him, with major roles in both the second Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug, and sixth Fast and Furious flick coming up. Not surprisingly, out off the two films he preferred his wardrobe in the latter - with Diesel Black Gold's contemporary menswear (his Furious character's clothes of choice) just beating out Middle Earth's heavy cloaks and furs. To mark his continued role as the face of Police watches and sunglasses, here he tells GQ his rules for black tie attire and why a good watch does more than tell the time.

What do I look for in a good suit?
The cut is very important, obviously. I've been lucky enough to wear a lot of nice suits in the past few years - I like a snug fit, single breasted all the way. Trousers, I like them to be quite fitted: the sharper the better. Good suits don't come from anywhere, though - I mainly wear Armani, Louis Vuitton and Burberry. For example, I wore a tuxedo to the recent Hobbit premiere that was Armani and that was a beautiful suit. With [that] tux, I tried it with a tie but it had to be a dickie bow in the end. There are certain tuxes you can get away with a black tie, but with others you'd be dishonoring the workmanship if you didn't wear a full bow tie.

I've been working with Police for over a year. Their pieces suit me, that's the main appeal. I've worn their watches for a while; they always look good. One funny thing is, though, I wear my watch on my right hand and I'm actually right-handed. People always wonder why - I don't know myself, I've just always done it that way and I like it that way a good watch fits on my right wrist.

My hair has always been a nightmare. I have it very short right now and I like it that way because I don't have to worry about it. You see, I've got two cows licks; when I was a kid all the boys in school used to have curtains and my hair never used to do that, ever! I always used to try and I always looked like the geek.

People do wear watches less often now. Someone asked a friend of mine for the time the other day, he had a watch on and he still put his hand in his pocket to get his iPod out to check. So I think wearing a watch is not just about telling the time now. A watch is a fashion statement and it says something about the person wearing it. When I wear a suit there's a certain kind of watch I like to wear - just under the shirt so you can see a little bit of the face. And that's a very different watch to what I'd wear if I'm training or if I'm just casually hanging out.

A guy's biggest style mistake is definitely trying to look too cool. As long as you've got a good pair of jeans, a good pair of boots and a few good shirts, you're fine. If you've got a good piece of clothing or a good accessory, it'll work with everything. I've also got a really good pair of Diesel Black Gold leather boots that I wear constantly - those sort of things I'll always take with me and travel with. You shouldn't try too hard, because that's when you start making mistakes.

The worst outfit I've ever worn would definitely be something my mother made for me when I was a kid. My mother did like to make clothes, and in I think the worst picture I've ever seen of myself - I must have been eight or nine - she'd dressed me in a matching t-shirt and Bermuda shorts ensemble which I think looked like somebody had thrown up all over it. I was so glad when that sewing machine stopped working, I have to say. The whole house breathed a sigh of relief.

I think sandals should be burnt. I hate them - purge them! That is all.

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