Luke Evans’s latest function is one he’s waited a long time for.

The star talked with PEOPLE at the Tribeca Film Festival best of his upcoming drama Our Son on Saturday in New York City. Evans opened about entering among his very first major film roles as a queer character.

” I’ve been all set to take that action for ages. I just haven’t discovered the right story [until now],” states Evans, 44.

And while he reads “loads of gay stories and scripts,” he states he “simply hadn’t discovered the one that I wished to play. And this was something I hadn’t seen before, and it’s plainly something that we’re all going through.”

” Divorce is as best for a gay couple as marital relationship, and I had not truly seen that, and when I read it, each time I’ve read the script, I wept,” Evans says. “So I simply thought, ‘Maybe this is a good time, and this is a great function to get and do.’ ”

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Our Son follows a couple (Evans and Billy Porter) in the middle of a custody fight over their 8-year-old son.

Evans told PEOPLE he’s “grateful” he chose to star in the movie “since it was a wonderful experience: distressing sometimes, unpleasant sometimes, extremely real, extremely visceral and extremely relatable.”

According to the Beauty and the Beast actor, “You don’t have to be gay to enjoy this or comprehend this story.”

” People all over the world go through divorce, breaks up and custody battles,” Evans said. “Families break up all the time, however this is the story of hope, and how they survive it, and how a new chapter is begun, however a various kind of chapter.”

Evans, who is honestly gay and dating Fran Tomas, formerly acknowledged in an interview with The Telegraph released in November that “gay individuals have actually definitely missed out on gay roles,” when asked about quotes Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies provided last year.

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Though The Telegraph didn’t specify Davies’s quotes, the latter said in a 2021 interview with The New York Times that he believed, for the many part, only gay stars ought to be allowed to play gay functions.

Though Evans is “uncertain about that,” he did concede that he comprehended where Davies was coming from and “totally believe( s) that things do need to change.”

” But from my perspective: first of all, I wouldn’t have had a profession if gay individuals played gay roles and straight people played straight functions,” said Evans, who played a gay character on Hulu’s 2021 series Nine Perfect Strangers. “I ‘d have played two functions out of the 36 jobs I’ve dealt with, or whatever [the number] is.” Evans likewise exposed that he thinks it’s more crucial that “the right person gets the task,” whatever stated task might be, based upon “talent and ability, and a bit of luck and timing.”

Our Son is directed by Bill Oliver and likewise stars Robin Weigert, Andrew Rannells, Isaac Powell and Phylicia Rashad.