The ordeals of Orlando
The ordeals of Orlando
The actor takes a brush with death,
a family shock and a breakup in stride
BY NANCY MILLS
Orlando Bloom in 'Kingdom of Heaven'
Bloom split with former flame Kate Bosworth earlier this year.
HOLLYWOOD - Orlando Bloom signed on to play the lead role of a French blacksmith turned Crusader in Ridley Scott's 12th-century epic "Kingdom of Heaven" partly because he was attracted to the father-son relationship in the film.
Only as an adult does Bloom's character, Balian, learn that the Crusader knight Godfrey of Ibelin (played by Liam Neeson) is his father.
It was an all-too-familiar experience for the 28-year-old actor, who shot to stardom as Legolas the Elf in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.
"It's interesting how subconsciously things come into your life," says Bloom, who grew up in Canterbury, in southeast England, believing that his father was the South African anti-apartheid activist Harry Bloom, who died in 1981 when Orlando was 4. When he was 13, his mother, Sonia Bloom, told him his real father was Colin Stone, a family friend.
"Harry was a professor of law at the University of Kent and considerably older than my mother," Bloom says. "She desperately wanted to have children. My father, who was one of Harry's top students and was very close to Harry and to my mum, was in the house when Harry was very ill.
"I think my mother and father ended up having an affair, which led to me and my sister, Samantha. My mum always said she felt Harry knew and encouraged it. Before he died, Harry said to my father he wanted him to look out for my mum and for us. And he has."
Stone became the children's guardian and still lives in Canterbury. "Colin was very much a presence in my life as a father figure," Bloom says. "When I found out later that he was my real father, it was pretty exciting actually. I was like, 'Wow! I just got a dad after all this long time.'
"But I still feel close to Harry. He was an impressive man. I've always felt he's somehow been a part of my life."
Maybe Bloom is one of those actors drawn to parts that offer a slice of personal psychodrama. Long before he clambered up a many-tusked oliphaunt in the last "Rings" film, Bloom tested his mountaineering ability in Notting Hill, London - and nearly killed himself. Climbing onto a roof terrace to kick open a warped door, he slipped and fell three stories and broke his back. At 21, he found himself immobilized in a London hospital bed worrying that he would never walk again.
"Before the operation, I needed four nurses to help me move," he recalls. "Ten days later I walked out of the hospital. I had a miraculous recovery."
It could have been the end of a promising Hollywood film career before it even started, but Bloom rode his luck.
Director Peter Jackson saw him in a play shortly after the accident and cast him as Legolas - who arguably emerged as the most popular character in the entire "Rings" trilogy. A few years later Bloom accepted a role supporting Johnny Depp in a film based on the Disneyland ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" - it was the joke of Hollywood until it opened and became a blockbuster.
Having since played Paris, whose wooing of Helen away from her husband causes the Trojan War in "Troy" (2004), Bloom is now eager to talk about his latest epic, which opens Friday.
"I liked being a leading man who's all about action and deed and less about words," Bloom says. "But [my character in 'Kingdom of Heaven'] is not the stand-up, go-get-'em guy you saw in 'Gladiator,' " which was also directed by Scott. "Instead, he is questioning his faith. He goes on a journey of spiritual discovery. It's really a coming-of-age story, and I could relate to that. I'm still in that process."
"Orlando is just in the dawn of a career," says Leonard Maltin, film critic with "Entertainment Tonight." "But I can't think of anyone else who has gone from unknown to star quite so rapidly or effectively. He already has a fan base. We've had other would-be stars foisted on us, but it doesn't often stick. Orlando has delivered the goods so far.
"Also, it's unusual for a young man to embody an old-fashioned sense of heroism on screen in the 21st century so well," Maltin adds. "Sometimes I feel that some young actors are borrowing their big brothers' clothes."
Nevertheless, Bloom had to convince Scott he could graduate from ensemble player to leading man. Four years ago, the director had hired him to play a small part as a soldier who falls from the air in "Black Hawk Down." Much more was at stake on "Kingdom of Heaven."
"I had eight hours to learn three of the hugest scenes of the movie," Bloom says on trying out for Scott this time around. "After a couple of hours sleep, I was doing a screen test with a stick-on beard on my face, chain mail on my back and blood on my forehead. But I understood what Ridley wanted. I felt I could understand the inner conflict this character was going through and the questioning of his whole sense of being."
"Considering the 'Kingdom of Heaven' budget, it's quite a big responsibility," Scott says of hiring Bloom for the $130 million movie. "But Orlando is very good at riding horses and handling weapons. He's very physical and is able to put himself in almost any action scene. In a funny kind of way you could say he's like Errol Flynn. Also, he has this very good sense of ethics. He is a very nice man. That's sometimes hard to play."
QUIRKY SIDE
Bloom still carries the idealism of youth. "I believe I am ethical," he says. "Humanity is something very important to me, as it is to my character, Balian. He takes on this oath of the knight to become a man who defends the people of Jerusalem. He's prepared to die to defend others. I think that's very honorable."
"Kingdom of Heaven" unfolds at a point when Islamic forces under Saladin were challenging the Christians' earlier conquest of Jerusalem. "It's a historical epic that deals with sensitive subject matter. Balian knows that Saladin probably has as much right as any to claim Jerusalem," Bloom says, though he won't elaborate on the film's controversial resonances with the modern Middle East and the post-9/11 world.
His next film, "Elizabethtown," which opens in October, also explores a paternal relationship, retrospectively. The drama, directed by Cameron Crowe and co-starring Kirsten Dunst, is about a young man returning home to bury his father.
"It's my first contemporary American role," Bloom says. "I've done all these historical epics and chivalrous roles, but there's an odder, quirkier side to me that nobody knows. Maybe they'll see it after 'Elizabethtown.' "
Meanwhile, he is currently shooting two sequels to "Pirates of the Caribbean."
"By the end of the third movie, my character [Pirate Will] will be a little darker," he hints. "But he will still be the straight guy, the guy who's drawing the story forward."
Bloom got into acting, he says, "when I realized that the characters I was seeing on the movie screen were actors. I just went for it. I was probably 10 or 11. I did a lot of plays at school, and I was always encouraged. I'm mildly dyslexic, and I found theater a very comfortable place. I was good at learning lines, and I had the confidence to get up there and deliver them. I took it quite seriously. Now the idea is to have fun with it and not take it so seriously."
He left Canterbury for London when he was 16. "My mum and my guardian were cool about it," he says. "I never responded to education. I was more interested in what was happening on the playing fields. I felt I'd grown out of school. My girlfriend was two years older, so when she left, so did I. I've always tried to keep ahead of the pack."
In London, he got a scholarship to the British American Drama Academy (BADA).
"When I first met Orlando, he had all these pins in his legs from motorbike accidents," recalls Jackie Matthews, his movement teacher at BADA and later at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where Bloom studied for three years. She is now head of movement at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
ROMANCE OVER
"He was obviously talented," she continues, "but he was also charming and had a twinkle in his eye. At BADA, he was really warm and supportive and giving in the group. And he was always reliable. He tackled everything with a wonderful sense of humor.
"When he broke his back in his second year [at Guildhall], he became more focused, and his work became more mature. But it didn't change his personality. Orlando's got a loving family, even if it's not the regular sort. The people in his life love him to death."
As for Bloom's much gossiped-about romance with actress Kate Bosworth, which began when they met while shooting a Gap ad in early 2002, they have officially parted, despite rumors of a reunion.
"I'm not back with Kate," Bloom says. "We're very close, but ultimately it's difficult to hold down a relationship when you're traveling around the world. We're taking some time and space to figure that stuff out."
He is also learning how to handle stardom. "I remember saying to Johnny Depp, 'Isn't it crazy how much you earn doing a job you love?' " Bloom says. "He said something like, 'Listen kid, privacy becomes very expensive. To live a life out of the eye of the public and the paparazzi costs a lot.' I didn't know what he meant until this year."
Meanwhile, he's making a partial effort not to risk life and limb.
"I'm more cautious," Bloom admits. "I bungee-jump, skydive, surf and snowboard. But I've accepted that I'm not invincible."
Star File: Orlando Bloom
Born: Jan. 13, 1977, in Canterbury, Kent, England.
Parents: Colin Stone, teacher and Bloom's prior legal guardian, who was revealed to be his biological father when the actor was 13; Sonia Bloom, former teacher. Also raised by Harry Bloom, civil rights activist and author (died 1981).
Sister: Samantha, actor, born 1975.
Education: St. Edmund's School, Canterbury; British American Drama Academy, London; Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, graduated 1999.
Companion: Dated actress Kate Bosworth for nearly three years before announcing their breakup in February.
Key films: "Wilde" (1997), "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001), "Black Hawk Down" (2001), "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" (2002), "Ned Kelly" (2003), "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" (2003), "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003), "The Calcium Kid" (2004), "Troy" (2004), "Haven" (2004), "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005).
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