Orlando Bloom

BLOOM: Does it open with my character in jail?

ME: No, there's no scene like that. It opens with your wife's body on the road.

BLOOM: How about the sword fight at the end? What did you think of that?

ME: Um, I don't think that was in there either.

BLOOM: How was the Knights Templars scene?

ME: That was in there. It looked great. Like a Jet Li or a Clint Eastwood scene.

BLOOM: How does it compare to Gladiator?

ME: It's a completely different movie.

Bloom's curiosity and anxiety are understandable. The future of his career rests on Kingdom, on the untested hypothesis that, at age twenty-eight, he is not just a pretty face but a bona fide leading man.

Finally, I try to reassure him that no matter what, the movie is a shoo-in for number one at the box office.

"Hopefully," he replies. "I worked so hard for this film. I wanted that role so badly. When I signed up to play Paris in Troy, I knew I'd be playing a weak person who was a coward. So to have the opportunity to play a hero like Balian, who has no fear, was great."

There is something disarmingly unintimidating about Bloom. Scott, who also directed him in Black Hawk Down, says Bloom doesn't have a gram of diva in him. In fact, he goes out of his way to make those around him feel like they are not in the presence of a star. When a ten-year-old girl thanks Bloom for signing her shirt the night before, he apologizes for not signing it as well as he could have.

When I ask if he considers himself a people-pleaser, he replies, "If life isn't about humanity, then tell me what it's about, because I'd love to know. Money and power aren't what life is about. It can't be."

Bloom isn't quick to offer specifics about himself. They have to be extracted slowly, like an impacted tooth. I ask if he's ever studied Buddhism, and he says that he has. I tell him that his statement is very Buddhist, and he agrees. I ask him if he considers himself a Buddhist. After a long pause, he admits, "Yeah, I probably would."

When the conversation turns to drugs, he's even cagier.

BLOOM: ...but my cousin loves to party.

ME:: What about yourself?

BLOOM: Um. I never felt comfortable with anything that alters my mind.

ME: You never did acid or Ecstasy?

BLOOM: [Silence]

ME: You must have done Ecstasy when you were going to clubs in London.

BLOOM: It just never really... [pauses] When I broke my back when I was twenty-one, it became all about looking after myself and preserving my back.

Topic evaded, but somewhere between the lines an answer has been given.

Before we turn in for the night, Bloom talks about a phenomenon he experienced while filming Kingdom of Heaven in Spain. That phenomenon was himself. It was the first time he had to deal with mobs of screaming fans outside his hotel -- so many that police barricades had to be erected. He eventually had to hire Brad Pitt's security guard. "I think I'm mentioning this because I feel slightly bad that I didn't cope with it better," he says. "I really feel like if I were ever back in Spain, I'd make an effort to spend time with those people. Because they were all so sweet. I felt like I froze."

Either Bloom is truly a good guy or he's a great actor. Perhaps even both.

(Excerpted from RS 974, May 19, 2005)