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In Full Bloom from
Big Hit, February 2002
Orlando Bloom will never forget picking up the phone to
hear the good news. “When my agent told me I had the job, I was screaming down
the phone! Oh my god – I was totally over-excited! It was too much,” recalls the
actor who plays the elf warrior Legolas in The Lord of the Rings.
“Not
only was it my first job, but it’s the anticipated movie of the year! This whole
job, can you believe it? I still can’t believe that anyone is even interested in
what I have to say!” The 25-year old British-born actor had just finished a
degree at London’s Gulidhall School of Music and Drama when the producers of LOTR
spied his audition tape. “Suddenly I have my own toy,” Bloom says, shaking his
head in disbelief. “It’s totally wicked.”
As you can imagine, the
inexperienced actor was quite overwhelmed to be performing alongside Cate
Blanchett, Ian McKellen and Elijah Wood, but he threw himself into the role,
learning to horse-ride, do archery and master the language of Elvish. “The
archery stuff was two months of training,” he says. “My first line of dialogue
in the movie is in Elvish, and, believe me, that’s a hard thing to get your
mouth around,” he says.
The actor looks totally different these days,
with his short, dark hair and dark eyes covered up in the film by blue contacts
and a blonde with, but he says it’s great, because he’s anonymous. Bloom
relished living in New Zealand for LOTR, throwing himself into surfing,
snowboarding and bungee jumping with his fellow cast members throughout the
18-month shoot. “Bungee jumping was great, man,” he enthuses. “I did, like, five
in a row. I was like doing-doing!” Now single, Bloom admits he did find it hard
to be separated from his girlfriend at the time. “It’s very difficult to keep a
relationship going when you’re not in the same country. Right now, the only
thing I’m in a big relationship with is my work.”
Bloom, who is inundated
with scripts, will next appear in Black Hawk Down with Ewan McGregor and Eric
Bana. “I play a ranger who’s fresh off the boat, as it were. Like it is for me
in real life.”
This was originally posted at the Orlando Bloom Fan Board by Druzilla
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