EveMyles.net

For Eve Myles, round is the new flat.

“I’m sitting down at home with my big five-months-pregnant belly and my dog,” said Myles, one of the stars of Torchwood, on the phone from Cardiff, Wales.

“Let me tell you something right now, bellies are the best things in the world,” continued Myles, a 31-year-old native of Wales. “Six-packs? They just don’t work. The only thing they’re good for is washing clothes.

“You think I’m lying? For my partner, I put extra butter on his toast and that kind of stuff to try to get a bit more fat on him. I love big bellies, there you go.”

Wow … our love for Eve Myles only grows.

But of course, when you’re a working actress, all good things must come to an end.

“I guess at the beginning of next year, I’ll be in the sauna suit, running for miles a day and getting back into Gwen Cooper mode,” Myles said.

Gwen Cooper is Myles’ character in the sci-fi drama Torchwood, which, if you haven’t seen it, is a BBC series that has an “X Files in Wales” vibe.

Torchwood is back on Monday with the Canadian debut of the five-night TV event, Torchwood: Children of Earth, on Space. This technically counts as the third “season” of Torchwood, and it will air in a single week, on five consecutive nights.

“It’s a completely stand-alone series,” Myles said when asked if newcomers to Torchwood — which is a spinoff from the modern revival of Doctor Who — need to have seen the first two seasons to follow what’s transpiring.

“There are some new characters. It’s very clever. It’s kind of brand new again, rebranded, and it’s awesome. Within half an hour, you’ll know who everybody is.”

Separate from the government, outside the police and beyond the United Nations, Torchwood is the name of a crack squad of agents who gather intelligence and protect humanity from alien threats. Besides Myles, Torchwood stars John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Tom Price and Kai Owen.

After Myles was cast in a single episode of the new Doctor Who in 2005, the creators were so impressed that they subsequently wrote a part in Torchwood specifically for her.

“I was not a huge fan of sci-fi before,” Myles admitted. “I adored Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And Quantum Leap is something I was brought up with. But that was it. I was a stage actress before, so it was a different thing for me.”

Myles had to get used to the intense devotion with which sci-fi fans follow their favourite projects.

“Being a female lead in one of these shows, I meet people and they can recite my lines — I didn’t know the lines that well when I was doing them!” Myles said with a laugh. “I’m a quiet person on the celebrity front, it’s not my style, and especially with sci-fi, the first year I wouldn’t do any signings. It was just too intimidating.

“But I bit the bullet and did a few of them and I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was nothing to be intimidated by. It’s just people being completely engrossed with what you do, and generous, and supportive, and they’ll back you all the way.”

In other words, Eve Myles found she had the stomach for sci-fi stardom. Which brings us back to big bellies.

“For the first time in 10 years I’m having my summer off, because I have what I think is my incredibly sexy big belly growing massively,” said Myles, who is pregnant with her first child. “I cannot wait for the point where I have to be rolled out of my house. Big up!

“Really, I’m not into this skinny nonsense. Give me a nice piece of cake and a good life, that’s what we all need.”

This excellent and down-to-earth interview with Eve comes from the Edmonton Sun. She’s cleary in a league of her own.