| QUOTE |
In Full Bloom Orlando is that rare bloom, an actor who goes hand in hand with his times. The Dean-Brando-Newman-Clift generation of the ’50s tapped into a post-war, restless, rebellious sexuality. The De Niro-Pacino-Hoffman clan represented the anti-war anti-hero of the ’60s. The so-called Brat Pack - which could have used a good or bad war to acquire some grit - were emblematic of a narcissistic, self-regarding, sexually heartless ’80s. Now the hormonal hunger has turned to something less controversial than the ’50s and ’60s models, and less solipsistic than their ’80s counterparts. Orlando Bloom is the new model - thoughtful, sensitive and eerily pleasant and polite. His sex appeal doesn’t feel violent or disturbing. In comparison to actors such as Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack, Bloom represents an altogether lighter and less complicated hero. "Orlando is a movie star waiting to happen," says Gregor Jordan, who directed him in Ned Kelly. "He’s going to be huge because he’s a good actor and he has incredible presence. There’s a reason why girls go crazy for him. There’s just something about him that makes people want to sit in the dark and watch him on the movie screen." Even off screen Bloom turns heads, but being the centre of attention does not make him comfortable. When he shows up to meet me in London, you get the feeling that he would prefer to go unnoticed. Softly spoken and respectful, the boyish 26-year-old often hugs his body into a ball as he talks, as if trying to hide in plain sight. "It’s an interesting time for me and I’m figuring it out right now," he says. "I’m trying to keep my head. I look at myself and wonder if I’m coming apart at the seams. I check with my sister, Samantha, who’s a couple of years older, if I’m still normal. She says I’m okay." Many stars are built up by the Hollywood machine but the force behind the Bloom phenomenon is an unusual one. Instead of being discovered sucking soda at Schwab’s by an agent, or being propelled into the starlight by a hyperventilating PR, Bloom’s first promoters were adolescent girls with computers who had noticed his sylvan incarnation as the elf Legolas in Lord of the Rings. Yes, the hobbits were cuddly and Sir Ian McKellan had a beard that could carpet three rooms - but teenage girls can sniff out promising hunks the way Orcs can scent out hobbits. After the first film, 29,000 websites dedicated to Bloomers had been set up. By The Two Towers, that figure had grown to 370,000, and before the final Rings film had opened, there were well over a million sites. Some operate on remarkable levels of intensity. On one messageboard, a teenage girl boasted that she’d met Bloom in LA and he’d bought her a drink. The other posters erupted, spraying vitriol on the board. "You don’t know Orlando, I do, u r mingers," spluttered the cocktail imbiber (a Sex On The Beach, apparently). "Okay," challenged another "Bloomie". "Let’s do a test, if you are Orlando’s girl then tell me what is his favourite vegetable? Answer now or admit you are a fake." The triumph in the response was palpable: "Eat s**t, Jessica, it’s carrot." Bloom laughs heartily at this, but says that he doesn’t log on to the net to monitor his webfans’ comments, although his mother Sonia does. A writer and businesswoman, she is an unconventional woman who ran a foreign-language school and named her only son after Orlando Gibbons, a 17th-century composer. From an early age, she took him and his sister to the theatre and to festivals where they took part in competitions. "You had to read out stories or poetry," he says, "and we always won." Nowadays she scans the net for stories about her son, and collects Rings memorabilia. Boarding the Air New Zealand plane that was to take her out to Wellington for the final film’s première last year, she was apparently most impressed when she saw her son’s face under his blond wig. It was painted onto the side of her plane. These are indeed the wonder years for a young actor like Bloom with his pan-gender cuteness, chaste marketability and Leo-like or borderline-Brad charisma. At the end of the Rings trilogy’s shoot, Bloom was given an elvish ring with the inscription "To wherever it may lead". The first film after his Tolkien marathon was Pirates of the Caribbean. When it opened last summer, Bloom was not expected to carry the film, but his presence made it a more attractive proposition to the teenage punter. The result? Within a fortnight of its American release it had earned £75 million - a bona fide critical and commercial box-office hit in a summer of heavy-hitting underachievers. Bloom attended the British première - his first as a solo star - and was overwhelmed by the response from the wide-eyed throng that screamed his name and demanded he come closer. Stars and members of EastEnders were left inside the cinema to steam gently in their party frocks while Bloom tried, impossibly, to shake hands and sign autographs for everyone. The yo-ho-ho swashbuckling in the film drew comparisons with Errol Flynn, but Bloom’s territory is not raffish seduction. Instead, like many of his roles so far, including his forthcoming film The Calcium Kid, it tended to emphasise his non-threatening persona. The actor thinks he understands why the young viewing audience can’t get enough of this kind of character. "I think somebody like Legolas is a really safe guy for a young girl of 13 or 14 to pin her hopes on. He’s kind of pretty asexual as an elf. He’s a warrior type and kind of handsome but he’s not sexually threatening. He’s just this blond dude who’s doing his thing," he offers, slightly embarrassed. "Also, he’s got nice hair. They can brush it and stuff. What can I tell you? I’m a male equivalent of a Barbie doll," he laughs. Needless to say his Rings co-stars teased Bloom mercilessly for his pretty-boy looks and his interest in personal grooming: "Viggo Mortensen called me Elf Boy and said that the vain elves always polish their fingernails and comb their hair. I called him a dirty, mortal human," he says, campily. At the wrap party, director Peter Jackson put together a Legolas joke reel to the tune of ‘Hungry Eyes’, with hefty homoerotic overtones, cutting from Viggo drawing his sword to Orlando apparently batting his eyes admiringly. Asked why Gandalf had no love interest, Sir Ian McKellan has larkily retorted, "Oh, but he does, my dear. He’s called Orlando Bloom." Boys like Orlando also get teenage girls through lonely nights, maths tests, a tub of Haagen Dazs and the month of February. Tallulah, the daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, may be only nine but she already knows who she’s going to marry. "Orlando Bloom is the one for me," says the smitten fan. Better him than Colin Farrell, one supposes. On the face of it, Bloom seems to have sauntered on to the Hollywood A-list, but that isn’t the case. Among the obstacles in his way were a battle against dyslexia and a fall during his drama-school days that threatened to leave him paralysed for life. His good looks are also a fairly recent phenomenon, too. "I was quite chubby as a kid," he says. "To be honest, the team sports they had at school never really worked for me." When Bloom was four, his South African father, Harry, died and a family friend, Colin Stone, became his legal guardian. Bloom was in his early teens before his mother revealed that Stone was also his biological father rather than Harry, an academic and friend of Nelson Mandela who was also jailed for his beliefs. "I was lucky," says the star of this bombshell. "I had two dads. I don’t remember much about Harry but he was a prolific writer and my mother always speaks highly of him. He’s been a role model for me in my head. As long as I can remember, Colin has been a good friend but I always thought Harry was my real father." The revelation did not disrupt his teenage years, perhaps because his sister is also Stone’s child and because they are a close family, but Bloom is reluctant to expand on this, just as he refuses on principle to confirm that his current girlfriend is Blue Juice actress Kate Bosworth, although the two have been photographed together and she is later glimpsed lurking in the hotel after this interview is over. If there is any quality that characterises the postmodern heart-throb, it’s self-awareness. Bloom is no exception, repeatedly and pointedly acknowledging his good fortune and sometimes embarrassed by how surreal his life has become since his small role as an unnamed rentboy in Wilde and a bit part in the hospital soap Casualty. For the Rings films he was given a crash course in how to ride horses, shoot arrows and race chariots, and eagerly seizes on the implications: "I’ve got all these brilliant skills which are completely useless in everyday life," he says cheerfully. "Take me back a few hundred years and I’ll be a real hero, but right now I can hardly use my phone. I’m computer-illiterate. I use a pencil and paper. It slows me down, but I really do prefer it." In other words, these other-worldly roles suit him. He is still tanned and tousled from his role as Paris, Ancient Greece’s notorious wife-stealer in the big-budget sword-and-scandals epic Troy. His co-star and screen enemy is Brad Pitt - "I got to shoot him in his Achilles’ heel. Apart from that I don’t really work that much with Brad. He does most of his stuff with Hector. He’s a lovely man and really an incredible actor. Somebody told me there’s a story going round that he uses steroids. Do me a favour! The guy has an amazing trainer. I mean, have you seen his body? He doesn’t need to." Working with Pitt, as with Johnny Depp, gave him a few pointers on how Hollywood stars behave in public. While filming in Malta, the entire cast of Troy went for a dinner and then on to a bar. "We had to walk a hundred metres to the bar and the whole town swooned over Brad," remembers Bloom. "It was insane. They were just trying to touch him. I was freaked out. He was so composed, man. He was like, ‘Just keep walking. Don’t stop walking and we’ll be fine. If you stop it can get really scary.’ And he had a bodyguard with him." Bloom’s current bearded Mediterranean look is quite at odds with his milky appearance in the film released at the end of this month, The Calcium Kid. It’s about a milkman who is also an amateur boxer who ends up fighting the world champion through a series of improbable accidents. Mrs Chris Evans, Billie Piper, plays his love interest, and Omid Djalili is his off-the-wall manager. While Troy is a bona fide extravaganza, The Calcium Kid is a small British comedy made on a small British budget: "The budget of The Calcium Kid was the same as the wrap party for Lord of the Rings," says Bloom, whose fee is now around £2 million per picture. "It was just something completely different. I needed to do it, and because a friend of mine, Alex De Rakoff, was making it as well, it was just so much fun and creatively rewarding. I saw it the other day and it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, but I really liked it. It’s good. There’s nothing not to like about it," he says. "I’m hoping that soon, after Troy, I can start doing stories that I really want to do and working with directors who really want to work with me." The main joke of the film is that, as a milkman, Jimmy the Calcium Kid drinks lots of milk which gives him a skeleton so hard that the British champion breaks his fist on Jimmy’s head during a warm-up sparring session. Ironically, Bloom doesn’t do dairy, preferring soy lattes. Nor does he have much enthusiasm for punch-ups: "I’m a lover, not a fighter," he laughs, and was initially reluctant to hit real-life boxer Tamer Hassan in the film. "Tamer’s a bit of a nut and Orlando’s not a nut at all," recalls De Rakoff. "Orlando didn’t want to hit him, even though Tamer kept telling him to lay it on him. In the end, he said a few interesting things to Orlando and Orlando chinned him." "I did," confirms Bloom apologetically. "A couple of times." The comedy also features brief cameos from British boxers a little higher up the ranking than Hassan. Fortunately, they kept their gloves on. "Frank Bruno and Chris Eubank have a couple of moments and it was a real honour to meet both of them," Bloom says earnestly. "There’s a scene where they come in and wish me the best before the fights, and Frank does his ‘hurr, hurr, hurr’ laugh. Chris Eubank is his fantastically eccentric self - he had the spats and everything, he did the whole number. Alex De Rakoff had seen Chris do a speech for some young fighters and adapted it for the film. But Chris came in with a completely different speech, and that’s what made the cut. It was brilliant." Bloom could well be a pin-up for earnestness. He thinks through every question I ask, even as he fidgets and flexes constantly in his chair. "He can’t sit still for very long. Suddenly he’ll say, ‘I think I need to move my car,’ and he’ll be off," says Elijah Wood, who plays Frodo in the Rings trilogy. "You’ll be having a conversation with him and be like ‘Where’d he go?’" It comes as no surprise to hear that Bloom loves skydiving, bungee-jumping, surfing and snowboarding. Even less surprisingly, he is also familiar with more than one casualty department. In addition to breaking his back at drama school, there’s the rib he broke when he fell off a horse while filming Rings, as well as both legs, his nose, a finger, a wrist, a toe and he’s even cracked his skull. "I feel like I’m in competition with Evel Knievel," he deadpans. This restlessness also means he’s been darting from filmset to filmset with barely a pause. As well as Troy and The Calcium Kid, he has just finished work on two more - Haven with Bill Paxton, and Ridley Scott’s much anticipated epic adventure Kingdom of Heaven. Fans may look at what he’s done and what he has planned - including the Pirates sequel in 2005 - and marvel at how rapidly his star has risen. On Bloom’s wrist today is a braided bracelet in blue and green, while his necklace is a jackdaw arrangement of stones, shells and a small silver key. These are his good-luck charms, he admits, perhaps to ward off the worst excesses of Hollywood. So has Bloom managed to keep his head and stay normal? Perhaps a small test is called for, beyond those assessments from his sister. So, Orlando, how much is a pint of milk? "About 35p," he says immediately. "But if you get it delivered, it’s a little more." • The Calcium Kid is released on April 30; Troy is scheduled for release on May 21 |
| QUOTE |
I Did Boxing Training Orlando Bloom's striking good looks have helped him become an international heartthrob and star of mega-budget epics Lord Of The Rings, Pirates Of The Caribbean and Troy. This pretty boy is the last person you would expect to play a boxer. But in latest flick the Calcium Kid he plays Jimmy Connelly, a milkman who can also pack a punch. It's a comedy but Orlando, 27, still had to put in some serious training. He said: 'I wanted to look like had boxed before. I did some training so could hold my fists up with the gloves on they are quite heavy. 'It was a fun process. trained a little bit in America with a guy there and then in Australia, when I was working on Ned Kelly, then I finished training in England. 'Now I have a whole new respect for boxers. It's not an easy sport. It's very demanding, physically and mentally.' The slim, fit, young actor, who developed a passion for surfing when he was in New Zealand filming Lord Of The Rings, learned the hard way. He said: 'I took a few knocks, yeah. It's an interesting thing trying to punch somebody. That's not a particularly pleasant thing to do.' Although he will admit to his share of playground punch-ups when he was a schoolboy.'I was a little bit of a scrapper when I was a kid,' he says.'But I grew out of that quite quickly, thank goodness. I realised the error of my ways.' In the film, the milkman is drafted in to spar with the British champion, who is preparing for a tilt at the world crown. But disaster strikes when the champ breaks his hand on Jimmy's head. Orlando said: 'I have to step in and there is a rather funny chain of events that lead to me having to fight the world champion.' The star, who is joined by pop star Billie Piper, impressionist Ronni Ancona and comic Omid Djalili, admits Jimmy is no Muhammad Ali. 'Jimmy isn't actually a very good boxer, that's the comedy of it. He's a milkman, first and foremost.' During filming, Orlando got a chance to meet a couple of Britain's former boxing greats, Frank Bruno and Chris Eubank, who appear in the movie. 'It was a real honour,' says Orlando. 'Obviously as a kid I watched them fight. Frank and Chris have cameos in the film when they wish me all the best.' But his training for the role didn't stop in the ring. 'I had a few lessons driving round in milk floats,' he says. 'And did the carrying of bottles of milk these guys can carry a bottle on each finger and one on each palm. I didn't actually manage that.' The early starts were nothing new for the former paper boy, who managed to avoid being recognised on his rounds. 'At that time nobody had a clue who I was,' he says. 'It was before I had done Pirates Of The Caribbean and the blond wig for Lord Of The Rings was still working as a very good disguise.' Orlando admits he's not a fan of a daily pinta. 'In the film I had to knock back a couple of pints but that was not real milk.' Despite his Hollywood success, Orlando was delighted to star in the low-budget flick. He says: 'It was my first leading role . I am very proud of this film. I had played all these intense, serious young men. This was a chance to throw caution to the wind and be a bit of a clown.' The tall star, who was born in Canterbury, Kent, and had to overcome dyslexia as he struggled to become an actor, is working on another blockbuster. This time it's director Ridley Scott's Kingdom Of Heaven, an epic tale set during the 12th-century Crusades. No wonder he says he often has to pinch himself. Orlando says: 'I feel very fortunate to have worked in such great films. Lord Of The Rings came straight out of school for me. It wasn't much of a decision... more a case of, 'Where do I sign?' It could all have been so different. Six years ago he broke his back after a three-storey fall. He had been trying to climb up a drainpipe after a friend got locked out of his flat. Orlando says: 'I was told I might not walk again. So for about four days I was contemplating that as a serious part of reality. Then they operated and I walked out of the hospital in about 12 days.' Away from the cameras, Orlando has tried to keep his love life private. Not easy when the woman in his life is beautiful American actress Kate Bosworth, 21, soon to be seen in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! and Wonderland. He has given her a gold bracelet as a token of his love. Of his sex symbol status, Orlando says: 'It's lovely but I don't feel very different to how I did a few years ago. try and maintain some sense of reality.' Asked if he's a romantic, he says: 'I like to think so. I'm a hero to my mum, I reckon, and I was brought up with good manners, so I try to be a gentleman.' After The Calcium Kid, Orlando's next film release will be Troy, the multi-million dollar saga of a 10year siege by the armies of Ancient Greece. The star-studded cast includes Brad Pitt, The Hulk's Eric Bana, Peter O'Toole and Sean Bean. Orlando plays Paris, the prince who starts the war when he runs off with Helen (Diane Kruger), the wife of the Spartan king. 'Paris is the lover, not the fighter,' says Orlando. 'It's a time of men and warriors and honour and he is this foolish boy who falls in love with Helen, steals her away and doesn't care about consequences.' He says working with Brad Pitt provided the same sort of inspiration he got from acting alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean. 'They are great role models. Johnny has always been incredibly courageous with the choices he has made and the same can be said of Brad,' says Orlando. 'I have noticed with Johnny and Brad that fame is a by-product of being an actor. 'I was in Malta with the Troy production and we had a cast dinner at a restaurant. 'As we left I was talking to Brad Pitt and then one of the single most bizarre things I have ever seen happened it felt like pretty much the whole of Malta had descended on the guy. 'I witnessed with great interest the incredible poise, humility and grace with which he carried himself at that point. People tend to get a little bit frantic around him so it was eye-opening to see him handle that situation, as there were people coming at him and trying to touch him and grab him.' As his star continues to rise, it's the kind of treatment Orlando may well have to get used to in future. The Calcium Kid is released on April 30. |
| QUOTE |
| No matter what he goes on to star in from here, to a lot of people Orlando Bloom is likely to forever be Legolas of "Lord of the Rings" fame. It was his breakthrough role and surely the opportunity of a lifetime -- for which Bloom was hired days before he even graduated London's Guildhall drama school -- and it is quite something to measure the rest of his career against. And so far, Bloom has done little to show off his versatility with roles in the equally costume-laden "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the upcoming "Troy." But all that is about to change, thanks to British indie "The Calcium Kid" (IMDb listing) in which Bloom takes on the title role of Jimmy "The Calcium Kid" Connelly, a milkman from South London. A quirky, off-the-wall mockumentary comedy (yes, there is such as thing, in Britain at least) that will have you laughing out loud, this feature debut from writer/director Alex Rakoff has a lot to offer to those who enjoy good cinema; a well-rounded story, terrific acting from a fabulous cast, great comedic timing and loads of priceless British humor. Jimmy Connelly (Bloom) really loves his job. A milkman for Express Milk Dairies, he approaches his daily tour of South London with plenty of enthusiasm. His ambition is to one day become a regional manager for the company. But then a sparring match at the local gym, where he is an amateur boxer, changes everything when Jimmy, quite accidentally and courtesy of his calcium-hardened bones, puts Pete Wright (former boxer Tamer Hassan), Britain's contender for the World Champion title, out of commission. For lack of suitable replacements, Jimmy suddenly finds himself touted as Britain's great boxing hope and thrust onto the world stage to face current champion Jose Mendez (Michael Pena) in a fight for the title and, quite possibly, his life. Calcium Kid is based on the script of a short written by Scots Raymond Friel and Derek Boyle, and Rakoff, South-London born and bred, took the story out of its Glaswegian setting and based it on his home turf for a more personal experience. It works stupendously well. A simple story with eccentric characters and a lot of heart, the acting, direction, and inspiring cinematography come together perfectly for 94 minutes of great entertainment. With Pena and Michael Lerner as his agent Artie Cohen admirably covering the American end of things, Bloom, acclaimed stand-up comedian Omid Djalili as self-appointed boxing promoter Herbie Bush, promising talent Rafe Spall as best mate Stan, and the obligatory British starlet Billie Piper as Angel, do British cinema proud. |