| Action-Adventure Movies |
| ||||||||||||||||||
Advertisement
Orlando Bloom as Legolas in The Return of the King.
Photo provided by New Line Cinema
Orlando Bloom as Legolas in The Return of the King.
Photo provided by New Line Cinema
More Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Elijah Wood interviewAndy Serkis interviewBilly Boyd and Dominic Monaghan
Even more Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Orlando Bloom Interview
 | From Fred Topel, Your Guide to Action-Adventure Movies. FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now! |
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Every time I hear the name Orlando Bloom, I want to say Orlando Jones. I think it would be cool if the former 7-up guy was in Lord of the Ring. Why didn’t they have any black elves? No? Is this too much? Okay, moving on.Orlando Bloom may have been the biggest discovery in the Lord of the Rings films. With nothing but a few TV parts and a small role in a film called Wilde to his credit, Bloom portrayed the elf Legolas in the trilogy. Suddenly, he was picked out to costar in films like Black Hawk Down and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Now, with Lord of the Rings ending, Bloom has a few more glorious moments as Legolas, including a big battle atop a giant elephant, plus a big slate of future projects to look forward to, including Troy, Kingdom of Heaven and a sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Was the elephant scene what you went back to reshoot this summer? That was the elephant sequence. That was it, yeah. Swinging around on the back of that elephant. They built the ass end of that elephant in a studio out of sandbags, and they had me wired and rigged to climb it with arrows and swing around it to make believe I was swinging around the back of it, and it was cool, man. I mean it was a three-day sequence, and then the fight stuff on top with the guys. It was great. Pete loved it. I had a very serious word with my digital double as well ‘cause I wanted to make sure that he knew exactly what his motivation was.
What sort of things went wrong with the big sequences? There are some great blooper reels where we are trying to actually knock the bow. To knock an arrow onto a bowstring is really difficult, it's a very time consuming process so there are lots of bloopers where we are doing that. There are lots of occasions where that lovely beautiful long flowing blonde wig that weighed a ton on my head would just get caught up in arrows and suddenly you'd yank part of your head off.
How did you like being a blonde for a year? I was very grateful for that. It was great because I had three years, pretty much, two years, of just witnessing the rest of the guys getting harassed, or not harassed, but just getting recognized. Since working on Troy with Brad [Pitt] and seeing how he deals with it and how Johnny [Depp] deals with it, and Liv [Tyler]and Ian [McKellen] and different people [do it]. I've worked with some great, amazing actors and big stars and so, I have sort of taken, you know, a master class in what that means.
What does it mean? Just to have humility and grace at all times, and realize that this could all be taken away from you really quickly and it's the fans that put you where you are and if you don't appreciate them, then why would they bother to come and see your movies and then, you won't be making movies.
Do you sign autographs? Sometimes, you just get people who come up to you at any instance and shove something into your face without saying anything, but the thing is sometimes that they're nervous, but then, you could be having a moment where you're uncomfortable and then suddenly there are so many digital cameras in your face. People have them on their phones, and they have them the whole time and with the internet, it's suddenly everywhere. I mean, Viggo [Mortensen] was really cool the other day because I saw him do it, and he said, “I'll sign anything you like, but I'd really rather that we didn't take a photo if you don't mind,' because you suddenly find all of these things on the net.
Are you surprised by how big you’ve become? Yes. I'm very flattered and very grateful and very happy to be working which is the main part of what I love to do as an actor. That's why I act because I love the work and it's a great job if you can get it. I feel like I get paid to do something that I love and that's a privileged position in life and the rest is great. Lord of the Rings put me into an arena basically that was a cut above the rest because of the class of the movie, because of the class of the talent that I was working with and because of Peter Jackson and what the movies have done, it sort of put me in this really great arena which was an incredible platform as a young actor to spring from and as a first springboard it was an amazing.
Go to page two for more on Pirates of the Caribbean, Troy and Kingdom of Heaven.
More Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Elijah Wood interview Andy Serkis interview Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan
