Evan Williams Feature

Renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell famously wrote in the hero's journey, "Follow your bliss and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be." few can attest to this sage wisdom more than 34-year-old actor Evan Williams, for Evan's own journey in life and love is the very definition of a hero's journey. In his Bello feature interview, the gorgeous and talented actor and musician sheds light on the interconnectedness of things, the power of creativity and nature, and how the love doctrine can open any door your heart desires.

**long coat BEAUTIFUL FUL suit MISSONI white shirt DSQUARED2 ( steph: SYMBOL: SQUARED) sweater COS shoes TOD'S**

"I think it's easy for us to forget we're animals." And Evan Williams should know. Having grown up surrounded by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, he understands how vital Mother Nature is in the quest for achieving balance. "We get so cerebral with our technology that we forget the psychological and physiological benefits of communing with nature," he says. "I get a lot of inspiration in nature, even on a storytelling level. If you look around in nature there are so many stories going on all the time; little moments of genius." Evan gives us one example from a recent trip he took to the Sierra Mountains near Yosemite. "My friends and I found a big spider in our cabin so we captured it in a glass and put him outside. As soon as we did that a blue jay came swooping down from the tree and almost got him. It's all about scale -- when that spider was inside he was aggressing us, but as soon as it was outside in a different context it became another animal's food. Everything is intimately connected, and I draw on that in my understanding of storytelling." Evan adds, "As an artist I try to shine a light on how we are all interconnected in this highly disconnected world. That's why I make the music I make, and it's why I tell the stories I tell as an actor."

Evan's passion for acting began at an early age, so it was a natural choice for him to pursue it as a profession. But as with all of the most valuable aspects of life that shape us in the most profound ways, the experience was challenging from the beginning. "I moved away from home in Alberta and headed across the country to go to theatre school at Ryerson in Toronto," he tells us. "So not only was it my first crack at a post-secondary education, but it was also my first opportunity to be an independent individual in the world, with full agency in deciding who I wanted to be without any strings attached. That experience was invaluable yet difficult at the same time. Like any young kid, it was a challenge to try and figure out what was important to me and what I wanted to say." Almost from day one of his acting education, his professors made it clear to everyone the road would not be a breeze. "Immediately we were told, 'If you can possibly do anything else you better do it, because this career is bonkers.' In a way we were like monks -- we studied six days a week and we left our blood, sweat and tears on the floor in the pursuit of figuring out what was worthwhile saying and how to say it."

Evan's search for identity, meaning, value, and a voice has most certainly paid off. In BELLO's entire history of meeting the brightest young stars in the business, we can say with full honesty that few match the wisdom, grace, intelligence, and inner beauty of Evan Williams. A 30-minute conversation with him feels like a masterclass on the importance of love as the governing force for the human experience. As he tells us, this was a lesson he learned primarily from his parents. "I grew up with parents who have very disparate beliefs -- my father is an atheist and my mother is a devout Christian. So I grew up with the opportunity to learn from both pots." That rich soil gave Evan his trademark oldsoul wisdom and he says, "For me, what resonated in that religious and secular upbringing is that nothing gets done without love. The 'Love Doctrine' has always resonated deeply with me and I see examples of it countless times everyday -- the way that human beings can become greater than the sum of their parts when they engage in loving one another. That's a big part of how I've learned to be happy in my daily life -- how love matters." Evan has a perfect understanding of how focusing on the 'letter of the law' means the 'spirit of the law' is destroyed. "I don't necessarily consider myself a traditionally spiritual person because with too much dogma you tend to not see the forest because of all the trees, and you forget that we're all in this great big beautiful forest together."

It's this kind of attitude that makes Evan the consummate professional actor, especially so for his three-year run playing the Chevalier on the TV series Versailles, which premieres its third and final season on the network Ovation on October 6th. We asked him what he will miss most about playing such an intense character. "To play a character with such unbridled opinions was such a joy for me -- the Chevalier is far less polite than I present in my own life," Evan says to us, laughing. "He doesn't take crap from anyone, and I'm going to miss playing him." He describes the how the process of getting into character evolved over the course of three years. "You might have seen those sci-fi movies where a person becomes infected by an alien being and you see it moving through their veins and overtaking their body," he says. "It feels sort of like that. I could tell because when the show first started, my process of playing the Chevalier was very deliberate -- I had to do certain rituals in order to step into his skin, such as the process of putting on his costume, and other secret little things I would do to fire my imagination. But by the end of the show the Chevalier was there pawing at the gate as soon as the wig was put on. I couldn't help but notice my mannerisms would instantly transform into this other version of myself."

But unlike other actors who might find themselves on a soundstage in the middle of nowhere, Evan took full advantage of the show's stunning filming locations in the very same French chateaus that his character walked in real life so many centuries ago. "It was such a wild privilege to be working in a context where such little acting was required," he says. "The atmosphere in those buildings was real, thick, and authentic. To get to walk on the same floors that our characters had walked meant the electricity was already in the air waiting for us. We could harness it so readily and put it straight into the work." He adds, "Whenever I found myself alone in those chateaus, while I was in full costume, I noticed there was almost no discerning between fiction and reality -- I was breathing the same air in the same hallways as my character." The privilege was certainly not lost on Evan. "It inspired a sense of responsibility to get it right, and also led to countless pinch-me-now moments. And quite simply, to get to live in Paris and be surrounded by that culture, I was constantly surrounded by real people who could easily have been straight out of the 17th century. I would watch the way people carried themselves, the way they conversed, and it all went right into the mixing pot that I would draw on to do the work."

When he's not immersed in mother nature, or his latest character, or his beautiful works of charity, you will almost certainly find him with his music. Fans might not be aware yet, but Evan recently recorded a brand new body of music in Nashville, a culmination of a creative journey years in the making. And like everything in

Acting is by no means the only passion of Evan's. One of the most mean- ingful dimensions of his life at the moment is his charity work for Build On, a remarkable organization he has worked with for years. Right now he's in the middle of a year-long fundraising campaign for a series of projects in Malawi and California. "We're doing a three-pronged 'attack' where we're building an elementary school in Malawi, as well as underpinning an adult literacy program because a lot of people there can't even write their own names which means they can't vote or get prescriptions so they're dying of diseases that are easily curable, and the third is an after-school outreach in some of the most challenged communities in Oakland, California where the graduation rates are extremely low." Evan tells us, "In areas where Build On operates, the graduation rates rise to around 97% from 53%. This kind of work is so effective in the Internet age because it not only engages those who are on the ground helping, as well as the ones getting the help, but the story itself is broadcast around the world and people are affected by it and end up getting involved." One of his favorite experiences with Build On happened a few years ago when they built a school, "in Nepal back in 2015, with the help of Versailles fans and folks from all over the world, and now the school we built is thriving, with a full enrolment of 157 students and equal opportunity enrolment between boys and girls." To give you a sense of how transformative this work is, Evan tells us, "The life expectancy of a young girl in Nepal changes dramatically with just one year of education."

**jacket BEAUTIFUL FUL flannel R13 sweater COS hat GLADYS TAMEZ**

Evan's life, he has a strong philosophy of how it connects to the bigger picture. "Music is another form of therapy. From a physics perspective, every particle in the Universe reveals its character because of its unique vibrational frequency," he explains. "It's no surprise that vibrations from music have been shown to affect not only our mood but also our physiology." So how did music enter Evan's life, exactly? "I came upon music naturally," he tells us. "I've always gravitated to making music at points in my life when I wasn't able to make sense of the world. It allows my subconscious to communicate in a non-limbic sense. The music I recently made in Nashville was the result of years of attempts and machination -- trying to find my voice, find what I want to say, and how I want to say it. It's a total dream come true to be finally producing my own music at the scale I am now. It's been a long time coming." For someone who's been working on music for this many years, his Nashville recording experience was a personal triumph. "I think I wrote my first song at 7-years-old, and have since written hundreds. I'd always kept them close to my heart, and to have finally reached a moment where I feel they're fit to be shared is exciting for me and makes me excited about what's to come in the future."

We're excited for your future, too, Evan. In following your bliss, you're not only opening doors for yourself, you're also opening them for everyone you've ever loved, inspired, and connected along the way. There truly is nothing more heroic than that.

You can watch Evan Williams in the third and final season of Versailles when it premieres on the Ovation network on Saturday, October 6th, 2018. And to help Evan meet his fundraising goal for Build On visit www.Act.BuildOn.org/fundraiser/1380114.

**jacket BEAUTIFUL FUL turtle neck COS sweater COS pants BEAUTIFUL FUL shoes ALL SAINTS**

**jacket EIDOS sweater MISSONI pants EIDOS shoes TOD'S**

Photography ARTHUR GALVAO @artgphoto

Styling SEBASTIEN HOHL @acidwasht

Grooming DANNI KATZ @dannidoesit

Junior Producer ALEXANDRA BONNET @bonnetalex18

Photo assistant ALEX BUDIN @alexbudinphotography

Production Maison Privée x BELLO Media Group

Evan Williams Feature

This article is from:

BELLO mag #175