Ramin

For someone who has starred in the West End as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables and as the iconic Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera, including the 25th anniversary spectacular at the Royal Albert Hall and at The Royal Variety Show, as well as creating the role of the Phantom in Love Never Dies, Ramin Karimloo doesn’t look like your average Olivier-nominated musical theatre superstar.
With an arm full of tattoos - everything from trees to angels to poetry - a trilby straight from Shoreditch and a huge on-trend jumper he bagged from a fashion shoot, he looks more like someone from Red Hot Chilli Peppers that you never noticed before. Except you would have noticed him: the man is stunning, with looks somewhere between Latin matinee idol and ruggedly handsome Brando-esque actor.
And if he doesn’t look like a musical theatre star then that’s just as it should be. Musical theatre stars don’t usually have their own bluegrass bands, idolize ‘proper’ actors like Daniel Day Lewis and Robert DeNiro, write their own songs or play the guitar, something he learned between matinees and evening performances of Phantom of the Opera, when it wasn’t worth taking the make-up off only to put it on again. He also plays banjo and piano, but claims not to be a musician.