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Alice Jane Evans was born in 1968 to David Evans, a professor of Applied Mathematics at Bristol University, and Janet Evans, an English literature teacher. She earned a degree in French and Italian from University College London before moving to Paris to study acting at the Cours Florent. She soon began working primarily in French television and appeared in the successful Italian miniseries Le ragazze di Piazza di Spagna (1998) as "Nathalie," a French student grappling with an unexpected pregnancy by a forbidden man. This role was particularly challenging because Alice performed in Italian but later had to re-dub the entire film due to her Italian accent sounding too British rather than French.
Her breakthrough came when her first feature film, Monsieur Naphtali (1999), caught the attention of Oscar-winning director Claude Lelouch, who invited her to audition for his film Une pour toutes (1999). After three callbacks, she was cast as "Macha," one of three actresses who, following a failed production of Chekhov's Three Sisters, devise a plan to con wealthy men and eventually create a film about their lives. The movie was critically acclaimed though not a commercial hit, co-starring Anne Parillaud and Marianne Denicourt.
Aside from a single episode of the TV show Highlander, Alice did not act in English, her native language, until 1999 when Disney cast her as the lead in 102 Dalmatians (2000), alongside Glenn Close, Gérard Depardieu, and Ioan Gruffudd. This was a major opportunity, but it was overshadowed by tragedy when her mother, Janet, suffered a fatal heart attack while walking her dog less than 24 hours before Alice's final screen test. Alice had hoped to surprise her mother with the news of the role if she got it. Janet was only 59. Remarkably, the first person Alice met after her mother’s death, Ioan Gruffudd, became her closest friend. They grew close during filming, began dating in late 2000, and became engaged in 2005.
In 2000, Alice filmed Best of Both Worlds (2001) for the BBC, playing "Diane," an air stewardess, wife, and mother who starts a relationship with a man in Italy, eventually marrying him and leading a double life. Written by acclaimed writer Paul Abbott, the series earned Alice strong praise for her performance. In 2002, Mel Smith cast her as the lead in Blackball (2003) alongside James Cromwell and Vince Vaughn. The film was both a commercial and critical failure, followed by other similarly unsuccessful British and European projects. Possibly due to these setbacks, Alice relocated to Los Angeles in 2003. There, she worked in both film, such as Four Corners of Suburbia (2005), and television, including CSI: Miami (2002) and The Chris Isaak Show (2001), while continuing to act in the UK. Her recent work includes a BBC One series with Alistair McGowan and the independent film Save Angel Hope (2007) with Billy Boyd and Eva Birthistle.
Alice lives in West Hollywood with her husband, actor Ioan Gruffudd. They welcomed their first child, Ella Betsi Janet Gruffudd, on September 6, 2009.
