Evans's family is from Northern Ireland. He was born and brought up in Liverpool, where his father worked as a taxi driver and his mother was a hospital health care worker. He has a brother who is eleven months older. Evans gained a scholarship to St. Edward's College, which he attended from 1991 to 1998, and where he began acting in school productions. He completed a course with the National Youth Theatre before moving to London at the age of 17–18 to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Career
His first major role was that of French teacher John Paul Keating in the Channel 4 comedy-drama Teachers during its second series in 2002. The following year he made his feature film debut in The Boys from County Clare, starring alongside Bernard Hill, Colm Meaney and Andrea Corr. Additional screen credits include Being Julia, The Situation, Cashback, Gone, Boy A, , Princess Kaiulani and Clive Barker's horror film, Dread. On television, Evans was featured in the 2002 docudramaThe Project and was seen as the Earl of Southampton in the miniseriesThe Virgin Queen, which premiered in November 2005 on Masterpiece Theatre on PBS in the US before airing on the BBC in January 2006. His stage work includes a UK tour of the award-winning play Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall. Recent television appearances include Murder City, BBC's Ashes to Ashes, Gentley's Last Stand and four-part drama The Take from the novel by Martina Cole on Sky1. Evans also starred in Sparkle alongside Bob Hoskins and Stockard Channing. He also portrayed Kurt Cobain in the Roy Smiles play Kurt and Sid, at the Trafalgar Studios, opposite Danny Dyer as Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious. In 2012, Evans also played the role of new pupil Daniel in the BBClegal dramaSilk alongside Maxine Peake and starred in the ITV series The Last Weekend. In January-February 2015, he starred as "Alex" in the Peter Souter play Hello/Goodbye, with Miranda Raison playing his love interest, "Juliet".
''Endeavour''
Since 2012, Evans has played the young Inspector Morse in Endeavour, which focuses on the detective's early career. The initial episode was broadcast on 2 January 2012. Endeavour has since been recommissioned for seven further series by ITV.
Directing
On 23 February 2017, it was announced that Evans would direct an episode of the BBC medical dramaCasualty. Evans said of his opportunity to direct the show: "I'm delighted to be working on Casualty. It's a terrific cast and crew and I'm very grateful for the opportunity". Evans directed an episode aired on 8 July 2017. He has since returned to the show to direct another two episodes, which aired on 19 and 26 May 2018. He also directed two episodes of Endeavour, "Apollo" in series 6, which aired 17 February 2019, and "Oracle" in season 7, which aired 9 February 2020.
