Orlando Bloom has better things to do than correct misinformation found on the countless Web sites dedicated to him.

Besides, he describes himself as an ostrich-like technophobe when it comes to the Internet. Luckily, his mom, Sonia, does keep track of such matters.

She encourages him to correct errors and perhaps start an official site, but his feeling is that "the work can do the talking."

Let us help the busy lad set at least part of the record straight.

Rumor: He was named after a character in a Virginia Woolf novel.

Truth: Bloom is not afraid of Virginia Woolf, nor did she inspire his given name. "The name Orlando Gibbons was floating around when I was younger," he says, apparently referring to the long-ago English composer.

Rumor: The actor eats only starches pasta, rice, baked potatoes. Or he's a vegetarian who doesn't like green vegetables.

Truth: "I've tried lots of different things. When you're working on a film, food is like a fuel. It can help you out or, if you indulge, it can get in the way. While making Lord of the Rings, I would get tired after lunch. I ate so much, it knocked me out. So I didn't eat meat. I stopped drinking milk. I wasn't strict, I was just trying to find out what was right. I went to see a guy for my back. He said he had been a vegetarian for 25 years, but he went back to eating one piece of meat every couple of weeks. Because of his blood type, he needed it. I was getting sick with the flu and feeling rundown. So I tried having steak and I wasn't ill anymore."

Rumor: The most famous and repeated quote attributed to him? "Frankly, if I get the chance to kiss someone in a movie, they wouldn't need to pay me at all."

Truth: Orlando may be a Bloom, but he's no blooming idiot. "First of all, I've never said that. Can you imagine?"

Rumor: He got into acting "because of the women."

Truth: "No, I never said that."

Rumor: The 26-year-old will star as "Daniel Day-Lewis" in The Remains of the Piano, a Merchant-Ivory spoof, directed and written by Monty Python's Eric Idle.

Truth: In the key of wrong. "No, I'm not signed up for that. But I had a look at it, and it seemed great."