Many audiences were first introduced to British actor Orlando Bloom thanks to Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of The Rings” trilogy playing the charismatic and cocky Elf archer, Legolas. One of Bloom’s first major follow-up roles was in the Greek epic “Troy,” directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Brad Pitt. However, Bloom says he wasn’t all that thrilled about the less-than-heroic character in the movie, which focuses on the epic war between the armies of Greece.
“Oh my god, ‘Troy.’ Wow. I think I just blanked that movie out of my brain, by the way,” Bloom told Variety for their video series “Know Their Lines?” when asked to reflect on his work on “Troy” and playing a bit of a coward. “So many people love that movie, but for me playing that character was just like [slits throat]. Am I allowed to say all of these things? I didn’t want to do the movie. I didn’t want to play this character.”
The from 2004 was directed by the aforementioned and late Wolfgang Petersen, who was behind the WWII film “Das Boot” and the classic ‘80s kids’ film “The NeverEnding Story.” Bloom’s co-stars included Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Rose Byrne, Diane Kruger, Brendan Gleeson, Brian Cox, Peter O’Toole, and Sean Bean as Odysseus (who nearly led the spinoff movie “The Odyssey”). This project was part of a wave of R-rated period action films from the 2000s in the wake of the massive success of Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” as studios were trying to replicate that model, but it is easily one of the more memorable for its combat sequences and scale. Bloom even admitted his agent talked him into taking the part, even though he wasn’t very interested in it.
“The movie was great. It was Brad [Pitt]. It was Eric [Bana] and Peter O’Toole,” Bloom explained. “But how am I going to play this character? It was completely against everything I felt in my being. At one point, it says Paris crawls along the floor, having been beaten by somebody, and holds his brother’s leg. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this.’ One of my agents at the time said, ‘But that’s the moment that will make it!’ And I completely fell for that line of an agent. I think that’s why I blanked that from my mind.”
Bloom’s experience with “Troy” didn’t sully his entire outlook on the genre as the very next year, he would take the leading man role in Ridley Scott’s relatively similar “Kingdom of Heaven,” which had Bloom in a much more heroic role as a fugitive French blacksmith joining his estranged father to a new life as a knight in the Middle-East during the Crusades.
Speaking of “The Lord of The Rings,” there is a slight chance Bloom could reprise the Legolas role in the newly announced “The Lord of Rings: The Hunt For Gollum” from director Andy Serkis after appearing in two of “The Hobbit” movies for Jackson.