Actor Luke Evans has stopped talking about his private life as he's about to star in three blockbuster movies, prompting gay entertainment website AfterElton.com to ask if he's returned to the closet.

The 32-year-old Welsh actor made a huge splash playing Apollo in last year's Clash of the Titans. He can soon be seen in The Three Musketeers, The Immortals and next year's The Hobbit and its follow up The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

In 2002, when gay glossy The Advocate caught up with Evans as he played the lead role of Billy in the Boy George musical Taboo, the actor freely talked about his decision to be open about his sexuality.

“Well it was something I'd spoken to a lot of people about, including my boyfriend at the time – we've broken up now – but at the time when I just got Taboo, I knew that even though my part was a straight character, everybody knew me as a gay man and, in my life in London, I never tried to hide it. I knew I was going to have to do interviews with gay magazines, so I thought, 'Well, I'm going to have to be open.' It's who I am. And if people don't like it, then I don't want their jobs. I've never been a very good liar, which is another thing ...”

Later, he added: “It's not a big issue, and it's never going to be a big issue for me; whether I'm successful or if I weren't successful, at least I'll never have that skeleton in the closet they can rattle out. Y'now what I mean?”

When AfterElton.com reached out for comment from his publicist, the note “Luke Evans is openly gay” was removed from the actor's Wikipedia profile.

And the website got the following reply from Evan's publicist: “I do not comment on my client's personal lives in the media. As for Luke, he did so once, a long time ago when he was an inexperienced, young actor and now with maturity and hindsight, he has learned not to engage the press in his personal life again.”