Why Alice is riding high

10 April 2012

Gorgeous model-turned-actress Alice Evans is well on way to shedding her ex-pat Parisian It Girl image. Now that she has finally shifted her affections from former boyfriend Olivier Picasso to Welsh heart-throb Ioan Gruffudd, Evans is on course for a career that owes less to the paparazzi and more to her own talents.

Having encountered Gruffudd, television's Hornblower, in the Disney sequel 102 Dalmatians, Evans is now less of a fixture in Paris Match, cheek-by-jowl with Picasso's grandson. Her new film, The Abduction Club, which receives its British premiere tomorrow, is her first stab at screen credibility.

A roaring costume romp with a serious underside, The Abduction Club is the second film from Stefan Schwartz, the acclaimed director of Shooting Fish. Although it required horse-riding, Evans couldn't be happier: "All actors have 'riding' on their CVs, but I have never ridden," she confesses. "I've never been so sore in my life. They gave me a horse called Vaughn, who was an acting horse. He knew when to stop and when to hit the mark."

"And then there were the corsets. For the first hour you can't actually breathe properly. When you take it off at the end of the day everything falls back into place. It's an odd sensation."

Evans is clearly happy to be away from the Gallic version of Liz and Hugh. With a few nondescript Eurofilms to her credit, she has done little except 102 Dalmatians. But her performance in The Abduction Club is sufficiently sturdy to warrant further attention.

"I started off doing all sorts of awful TV in France" she confesses. "And I was very happy about getting roles in France and Italy. It was all very exciting at first with Olivier. But publicity does catch up with you eventually. You can't stop it."

Her days as a model were also not as successful as she might have wished. "It was bloody awful" she says. "They didn't think I was beautiful or interesting enough, and the endless rejection got to me. Not the right nose, hands too big for arms, that sort of thing. I'm quite pleased I wasn't successful as a model. Otherwise I wouldn't have wanted to become an actress."

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