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Orlando Bloom is an astonishing success story. This
young actor has defined himself as a real artist. He is very attentive
in creating his work and being absorbed by it all with an understated,
unspoken truth that it pervades each character. Orlando Bloom is an
actor who methodically adjusts himself to every type of part he plays.
Bloom is not only a good-looking, handsome "poster boy", but he is also
a resourceful, imaginative and dynamic working actor who prides himself
on what he has yet to accomplish as opposed to what has already amounted
to nothing short of tremendous, all things considered. Has any actor
ever been as famous or desired without ever having headlined a major
motion picture? And which other actor can boast a US box office average
of well in excess of $100 million per film even if the calculation
includes the films he's made but have not yet been released? The young
man's rise has been meteoric, to say the very least. And, given the
projects he still has in the pipeline, this climb can only continue.
He's what we would call a "sleeper success"... but this enigmatic man
has certainly NOT been sleeping. Bloom, who gained notoriety as the
elvish archer Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, soon signed on
to play lovelorn blacksmith Will Turner. In the film, Turner hits the
high seas with Jack Sparrow [Johnny Depp] to rescue the object of his
undeclared affections, Elizabeth Swann.
When asked what it was like to work with Johnny Depp,
an actor who prides himself on being a chameleon, Bloom is very modest
and complimentary, “I would just go off of him. I mean, he's the MAN,
you know what I mean? And I would just take my leads from him. The way
he played Jack left it wide open for me to play Will in a certain way.
And Will was written like a straight-shooting, true-blue, honest sort of
hero character. But had Johnny played his Jack Sparrow as more of the
hero character, it might have conflicted. But Johnny left it wide open
for me just to go the whole hog on the hero number. Do you know what I
mean? Because the hero element to his is much more character-based, so
it kind of left it wide open for me, which was great. And then I would
be like, forget the close-up, just give me a two-shot, because it was
just great to do stuff with him. He’s an amazing actor.”
It’s been widely publicized that Depp predicated his
entire pirate/character interpretation on Keith Richards [The Rolling
Stones lead guitarist]. Bloom laughs reminiscently, “I'd love to be
Johnny Depp. It was so cool, because Johnny created this incredible
drunken sea-legged Keith Richards character which really didn't read
like that at all on the page. It was amazing to see it. And my character
was this earnest, true blue, straight shooting guy. I have to tell you,
I didn't know what to think at first. I mean, I knew he'd bring
something unique to it the way he always does with his roles. I just
didn't know what it would be and when I saw it, it was fantastic. I
think the studio was a bit nervous about it at first, and then they got
it. But for me, as a young actor, to see somebody like Johnny who
creates a character from nothing, it's great.”
 As
for the shoot itself, Bloom describes it as one of the most
enjoyable times he’s had as an actor on set. “It was just the most fun
I've ever had. I got to work with one of my heroes, Johnny Depp, and to
see how he goes about business, which was really inspiring for me at
this stage in my career. Gore Verbinski, the director, was a great guy
and Jerry Bruckheimer's such a cool guy. I've worked with him before [on
Black Hawk Down] and he really knows how to make things go off with a
bang.” Of course, with his swashbuckling heroics and dashing good looks,
Bloom has been crowned one of the “sexiest” young actors to hit the big
screen since Brad Pitt, something the actor finds a tad bit
overwhelming, “I find it all so nerve-wracking. I just don't take it
seriously, you know? It's all kind of new for me and hopefully I won't
let it get to me too much. I love the work so this sort of thing really
doesn’t mean as much to me as what I do. I’ve chosen the work. It kind
of happened for me, and I feel really grateful for it. I haven’t made a
conscious effort to get involved with that. I have just responded to the
material. The heartthrob status thing is only really recently becoming
more apparent to me. I really hope it won’t stop me from making more
interesting choices and that’s what I intend to try and do. I feel like
there’s a certain rite of passage, you have to create yourself. You have
to create a bit of like Johnny did with 21 Jump Street. He kind of
created that without necessarily intending to, he just wanted to work,
he created a heartthrob status which led him to do whatever he liked. I
hope I get the same opportunity.”
Bloom, we were told by set insiders, did a really
interesting impression of Johnny Depp, which the rest of the cast and
crew found to be hilarious [laughing]. I didn’t know at first if he’d
seen it, but we talked about it eventually because we were flying over
Saint Vincent together. And then I was like, ‘I was really down with
doing what you’re doing. And I would love to do an impression of you.’
And he was like, ‘You should do that, it would be great.’ Jerry
[Bruckheimer] was on the flight as well, and he was like, ‘Yeah, we’ll
work that in. Okay!’ And it was cool… it was fun to do it. It was pretty
straight. Johnny’s got this thing, and he had this whole movement, so I
did a lot of stuff with him and just watched him and tried to do it and
like I said, it worked [laughing].”
 Given
his openly admitted philosophies of Nichiren Buddhism, a
passive religion that he has associated himself with, we asked Bloom
what he felt his greatest strength was as both a person and an actor. “I
try to keep it all very truthful and sincere. I play the human element
of each character. I am still relatively young. I am figuring it all
out. It could all go in a completely different direction for me as I
learn and grow. I try to stay on a spiritual path, keep the balance. As
for the success— I still can’t believe it all. It is weird time for me
right now. As I said, I am kind of trying to figure it all out. I feel
really lucky for the opportunity to work. That is all I really ever
wanted to do. That’s the hard thing when you start to live the dream,
it’s not quite what you thought it was because there is a lot of
overwhelming stuff that comes on top of it and you have to deal with
what comes with it. I wish I could just be in the films and still enjoy
everything else. But everything else starts to become slightly
overwhelming in some ways. So it is just an adjustment on my part, but
it’s cool. I don’t have much time off, and when I do get time off, I try
to just enjoy hanging out with my friends, hanging out with my family—
catching up on movies, reading some books, listening to some new music.
I have been going to locations which sometimes have been in the back end
of beyond and you don’t get access to the stuff that you can do when
you’re at home. So, I try to catch up on all of the things I have missed
out on— just spending time with people that are important to me.”
UB
Actor Orlando Bloom and actress
Gwyneth Paltrow will make cameo appearances in the romantic
comedy Love and Other Disasters, which began shooting at the beginning
of July 2005. The film, written and directed by Alek Keshishian revolves
around a group of friends in London who discover sometimes love isn't
like the movies. The picture stars Brittany Murphy, Matthew Rhys,
Catherine Tate and Santiago Cabrera.
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