Hype: Orlando Bloom

By:  Daniel Davis

Movieline Dec./Jan. 2002

          With his warm, somnolent Canterbury accent, tranquil self-assuredness and a face that looks like it was carved from Italian marble, its a wonder Orlando Bloom didnt aim for movie stardom right after his first few acting jobs.  Instead, the 24-year-old followed up roles in the UK soap Casualty and the 1998 biopic Wilde (starring fellow Briton Jude Law) with a three-year stint at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  I had an agent before I went in, he says, But I wanted to train.

          The experience apparently paid off because shortly after graduation, Bloom landed the pivotal role of the Elf warrior Legolas in the hotly anticipated Lord of the Rings trilogy, the first installment of which, The Fellowship of the Ring opens in December.  In addition to Learning horseback riding, sword fighting and archery, Bloom also had to master Elvish, a dialect created specifically for the movie.

          Its a very difficult language to get your mouth around, says Bloom.  My first scene on my first day was delivering a line of Elvish to a group of Elves, which wasnt the easiest sort of thing to open with.  We were in the studio in New Zealand, and it was very hot, and I just remember thinking, God, man, the Elves look really strange.  But it was fun.

          Bloom went directly from Rings 18-month shoot into another mammoth production, Ridley Scotts upcoming war epic Black Hawk Down- but not before grabbing some much-needed R&R a long way away from Middle-earth.  After we finished, I went surfing in Florida with two of the Hobbits, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan.  The cast always trying to find something cool to do during filming, and surfings definitely the way to go, man.

The Stand Outs

Movieline April 2002

Orlando Bloom in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Among the many smart choices directo Peter Jackson made when casting the film version of J.R.R. Tolkiens vibrant Lord of the Ring trilogy, his gutsiest was to embellish a roster that included masters like Ian McKellen, gifted new stars like Cate Blachett, underused lookers like Viggo Mortensen and hobbit dead-ringers ike Elijah Wood with the additionof a compete unknown.  Fresh from a three-year haul at drama school, the 25-year-old, felicitously named British Actor Orlando Bloom was picked to play Elf warrior Legolas Greenleaf.  Early stills of the film revealed a suspiciously Casper Van Dien-like presence that made one wonder.  On-screen, Bloom was somethin else.  He did have an almost unreal, cheekbone-bedecked handsomeness, but he also moved with crystalline resolve and athletic grace.  Even when a million things are happening at once, Bloom grabs your attention and makes you feel everything that depends on the great battle of good and evil.  Fortunately for us, Bloom will play beefed-up roles in the final two films of the trilogy, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.