Luke Evans shares the heartbreaking but deeply relatable reason why he left his hometown at age 16

You could almost disappear. That’s the reason London appealed to me when I was a young man.

You want to find your community, and often where [gay people] are brought up, there isn’t one, or there’s shame, or there’s secrets.

To feel free, and to feel part of something, you go to a big city where you’ll find people like you.

It’s what gay people have done for decades and will keep on doing. Though I do hope that these smaller villages and cities are a bit more accepting now.

Luke Evans speaking to The Independent about moving from his small hometown to Cardiff and then to London in search of community when he was just 16 years old.