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Early
Bloomer
Written by Tami
Mnoian
"It
takes a lot of courage just to go, okay, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to put myself out there and see what happens. It's
crazy. You put yourself up on a screen, up there, so that
essentially at some point, people are going to start knocking
you down to make way for the next. It is a really strange
industry and job that I do. But it's also marvelous and
amazing."
An English
professor once defined the sublime with an analogy pf physical
proportions : Imagine standing at the edge of a canyon knowing
you're about to fall. That feeling of awe and terror just before
you drop is the sublime. It is indescribable, the weird space of
suspension between two worlds. Orlando Bloom is currently
experiencing the sublime, but his canyon is the wide and
uncertain chasm of Hollywood. It'll either swallow him whole or
send him flying. With two movies opening this year - the
seafaring adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse of
the Black Pearl, and the finale to The Lord Of The Rings,
The Return Of The King - and three others in the works,
Bloom is gaining some well-deserved altitude.
Apparently
Malta is the new Ibiza "It was written in a newspaper in
England that if you're going on holiday this summer, why not go
to Malta because Brad Pitt's filming there. And you might bump
into him," Bloom laughs. The 26-year old, tan and
jet-lagged has just arrived after a 13-hour plane ride from
Malta to London to Los Angeles. He's been up since six a.m., and
though he should be ready for a nap the kid can't sit still.
Bloom is all smiles and flavors his speech with enthusiastic You
Know What I Means. There's certain energy about him, and
integrity. Even when asked a question that he's not exactly
thrilled about, Bloom just kind of hunkers down, grins, bears
it, and answers truthfully. He's currently in the middle of
filming Troy (based on the Trojan War and "the grand
love story" between Paris and Helen) on the small island
nation of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean.
"I guess
it's just sort of a big party island," he debates. "Not
all of it. I'm just being so general, but in and around the area
we're working, it's party central. But the countryside is
beautiful and I have a great house. It's a big of a sanctuary,
so I'm really enjoying that." Bloom's been in Malta almost
a month now, having a good time working alongside Pitt, Eric
Bana (The Hulk), Julie Christie, and Peter O'Toole on a
story that’s been around forever. It's quite a cast and quite
the production, but the actor seems to have found a home
tackling projects of such scale. "I know, it's mad,"
he says. "I am getting much more comfortable. I was doing a
scene [with O'Toole], and to be standing there not feeling as
petrified as I would have been a couple of years ago… Do you
know what I mean ? I wasn't as intimidated," he says with
conviction. "I felt more comfortable to do what I needed to
do, and not let my fear or anything get in the way of the work.
That was kind of a nice moment. It's fantastic to work with
these people. And then to be able to try and take that into what
I'm doing. They raise the bar. That's a new target to aim for."
Originally from
Canterbury, England, Bloom's first taste of acting was reading
poetry as a child, like the work of Robert Frost, at local
festivals. "I don’t know why she wanted [my sister and I]
to do it. But it was great. I loved it. My mom has always
encouraged us to be creative. And she would have people come
around and teach us art and poetry and stuff like that."
The dramatic readings eventually led to school plays. At 16,
Bloom moved to London to hone his acting skills at the National
Youth Theatre of Great Britain. Of leaving home a few years
earlier than most, he says, "I felt good about it. I've
kind of always been a bit ahead of myself and I was ready to
leave. I felt like London was the place to be." He then
went on to study at London’s prestigious Guildhall School of
Music and Drama. These years proved to be profoundly maturing
for him professionally and personally, while laying a stable and
necessary foundation. "I needed it. I needed grounding. I
needed an education in an industry that I wanted to be working
in. I learned to work with a company of actors and to work with
different texts and have an understanding and an approach to the
work with a bit more; I hope integrity than I would have done
otherwise. That's probably what kept me round in the head,
getting the chance to mess it up in the safety of an environment
where it's all about education and growing and learning."
While in school, Bloom performed everything from Chekhov to
Klaus Mann's Mephisto to circus acts to mimicking the
movements of lizards. "For one of my first exercises, we
went to the zoo to study animals and the teacher asked, "What
animal do you want to be ?' I thing I wanted to be an ape, but
she said, 'No, you’re going to be a lizard because you need to
learn to be still and find the stillness."
While Bloom
still possesses all of the fire he had as a child, there is a
difference between him then and now. "I think I was quite
loud then, and I think I'm less loud now-which is kind of
bizarre. I was quite kind of outgoing in a whole different way.
I was like, Nothing is stopping me. Had my life in the goal and
I was going for it. [Now, I'm] learning to be comfortable just
doing nothing. I guess the difference is I'm trying to move
forward in a way that keeps me growing and evolving as a person,
as opposed to just doing it for the sake of doing it, and doing
it just to get to a goal. It's like the journey is the
destination. I'm trying to learn all those clichés. No that
they're clichés but…" he trails off.
As the story
goes, Bloom was days away from graduating Guildhall when he won
the role of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed elf, Legolas, in The
Lord of the Rings trilogy. "It was such a special
experience," he smiles. "It was such a special job.
All the motivation behind it felt right. The project has a lot
of integrity and it definitely hits a chord with a lot of
people." Three movies filmed in the span of 14 months, did
he ever wonder if director Peter Jackson could pull it all off ?
"No, not once," he says without hesitation. "Now
that I've worked on all these other films, I can't believe he
did pull it off. But at the time it was my first film. I just
thought, Oh, this is what happens. So I never doubted him, but
now I'm just amazed."
Technically,
Bloom's first film role was a small one-liner in the Oscar Wilde
bio, Wilde, but The Lord of the Rings is where he
learned the ropes of filmmaking. In The Two Towers, when
the fellowship is split up and the friends are forced to
overcome individual obstacles, Bloom shared significant screen
time with Viggo Mortensen (who plays Aragorn). "He was such
an incredible role model for me and such an incredible human
being. Not just as an actor, but he was a bit of a hero for me.
He was amazing at what he did and I learned by watching him"
Set to open in December; this third and final installment will
close a significant chapter in Bloom's life and career.
After the
marathon of Rings shoot, Bloom went on to film Black
Hawk Down. He then shot Gregor Jordan's Ned Kelly,
with Heath Ledger and Geoffrey Rush. After that, he returned
home for six weeks, but not to rest. Instead he took on his
first lead role in The Calcium Kid, and independent
project directed by his friend, Alex De Rakoff. The comedy,
Bloom's first one on the big screen, marks a departure from his
previous dramatic roles. He plays Jimmy, a milkman turned boxer
who gets a chance at the middleweight title. "I wanted to
do something light and show another side of myself," he
says. Is he funny ? His friends will say he's a bit of a clown.
Bloom went
straight from The Calcium Kid to Pirates of the
Caribbean. Directed by Gore Verbinski, staring Johnny Depp,
Geoffrey Rush and Bloom, it's a blustering high-seas adventure
with all the requisite pirate fixings-swords, ghosts and a
damsel in distress. Inspired by the spirit of Disney's amusement
park ride, Pirates looks to be good summer fun with just enough
humor to keep it light, but with plenty of swordplay and
suspense. Bloom plays blacksmith Will Turner. "So it's a
bit fun. In very basic form, there's a girl, there's a boy,
there's a rogue pirate, but he's a good pirate, and there's a
bad pirate." Captain Barbossa (Rush) has stolen Jack
Sparrow's (Depp) ship and kidnapped the governor's daughter,
Elizabeth (Keira Knightley, Bend It Like Bekham), so Jack
and Will team up to claim what's theirs. "He wants his
boat. I want the girl. We're all chasing something and it all
kicks off and is great fun." Pirates gave Bloom a
chance to work with Rush once more, and Bob Anderson, the sword
master from the Rings shoot. Having experience with a blade gave
the actor a head start. "You get used to it. It's sort of a
muscle memory thing that you just kind of pick up," he
says. "You learn spatial awareness."
Will Turner is
all heart and Bloom inhabits the character with an earnestness
and ease. "One of my lines is, 'I practice three hours a
day so when I meet a pirate, I can kill him.' I say that to
Johnny and I'm supposed to be very good with a sword. Johnny's
character sort of toys with me and that irritates me, who's
really straight down the line and knows every move." Bloom
says about his character's knowledge of the rules of engagement.
"But Johnny's going, 'I'm a pirate,' and he's' slapping me
on the bum with his sword, running circles around me."
Just as Viggo
Mortensen was someone Bloom looked up to, Depp was also a role
model. "I'd be doing a scene with him and the writer from
the beginning said, 'You guys have these great characters to be
working with because it's almost as if the whole time you're
looking at him." And in terms of the context of the
character, Will is long at him going, 'What the fuck is this guy
doing ?' But actually, it's me looking at [Johnny] going, I can't
believe I’m doing this… and I loved that. I always felt so
privileged to be sharing the screen with him."
Bloom is
gracious and thankful for his career's good fortune. "I
could be out of work, struggling to make rent, living in London,
and not doing much. I've just had a different path. It is mad.
It is mad," he says again. "It does sort of freak me
out a bit." Bloom's just purchased a place in London,
though it seems he won't be back to the British Isles any time
soon. He's working at a manic pace, which suites him. Pirates
opens July 9, and being the big Jerry Bruckheimer-produced
extravaganza that it is, the film will officially catapult the
actor deeper into the public eye. He sounds excited yet cautious
about what is to come. He's trying to stay grounded in a
business that isn't. Recently, while having and after dinner
drink with Brad Pitt in Malta, Bloom experienced a taste of the
fame and attention that is sure to befall him. "I've never
seen anything like it," he says, amazed. "Like the
whole town was coming up to him, grabbing him, trying to touch
him, or shake his hand. And he says to me ‘Just keep moving,
don't stop. Just keep moving on.' He was really gracious in that
situation."
In an interview
just before The Fellowship of the Ring premiered, Bloom
wondered how or what would change in the time between the first
film opening and the third one. Musing on the last few years of
his life, he says, "I don't think I'm completely different.
I've worked more and that's helped me evolve. It's a very unreal
world. At the moment I'm just trying to keep that real and not
get caught up in all of the stuff that surrounds this industry.
You know, there's so much stuff that goes around and I’m not
really interested. You've got to get to a point where you go,
Okay, but you can't sort of dodge it. You can’t opt out
because where's the courage in that ?
"When you
get a certain amount of opportunity you have to take that on. So
I'm in this sort of balancing act-be courageous and do the work
and put myself out there and get it right. Just enough to get it
right, but not so much that I'm lost in all the stuff that
surrounds what I'm trying to do. Does that sound like a lot of
rubbish ?"
No, Orlando, it
just sounds honest.
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