Orlando Bloom was born on January 13th 1977 in Canterbury, England. His parents are Harry and Shiela Bloom and he has an older sister, Samantha.
Orlando moved to London in 1993 to improve his acting career. He did all sorts of small roles in several T.V. series like “Casualty” and “London’s Burning. His first big role came in 1997 when he played the rent boy in the acclaimed movie Wilde . After that twenty-year-old Orlando was offered numerous film roles, but instead of taking any of them he decided to study theater for awhile at Guildhall School. During his three years there, he performed in productions ofLittle Me, A Month in the City, Peer Gynt, Mephisto, Twelfth Night, Trojan Women, The Seagull, Three Sisters, Recruiting Officer, Antigone, Uncle Vanya, A Night Out and Mystery Plays.
Orlando graduated from Guildhall in 1999, but before that, he heard about Peter Jackson’s upcoming films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Lord Of The Rings. Orlando auditioned for the part of Farimir, but didn’t get it. Six months later, he was asked to audition for the part of Legolas. Needless to say, he got the part.
Working on all three The Lord of the Rings films over eighteen months. “Shooting 'The Lord Of The Rings' was absolutely exhausting but it was an unforgettable experience,” Orlando said in an article for Telegraph Magaziene. “The places we filmed were often breathtakingly beautiful and off the beaten track. A lot of the mountain locations – like the one in this picture, in which Peter Jackson is directing Ian McKellen [Gandalf] – were accessible only by helicopter. Working with actors as accomplished as Ian was a bit daunting at first but most of the time on set I didn't have the chance to feel starstruck; we were just a group of actors involved in an epic production which sometimes felt like a wild horse that we were all trying to keep under control. It was a very unifying experience in that sense.”
It was the first of the Lord of The Rings films, The Fellowship of the Ring that made Orlando Bloom a Hollywood heart throb overnight.
Since working on the blockbuster trilogy, Orlando has appeared in the move Black Hawk Down as Private Todd Blackburn. He’ll be appearing in four upcoming movies. In the first, an Australian movie called Ned Kelly, Orlando plays Joe Byrne, best friend and trusted lieutenant to Ned Kelly, leader of a gang of outlaws similar to Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
In the movie Troy , an adaptation of the Illiad, Orlando plays Paris, the young man who starts the long Trojan war by spiriting away the Spartan King’s wife, Helen.
In Calcium Kid Orlando plays Jimmy, a milkman turned champion boxer.
In Pirates of the Carribean Orlando plays black smith apprentice Will Tanner, who teams up with pirate captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp) to rescue his kidnaped girlfriend.
This is a picture Of Orlando in Ned Kelly
These are pictures of Orlando with co-star Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean
Orlando's first big lead role was as the valiant blacksmith turned knight Balian in the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven.
Orlando as Balian
He also played a young man named Shy in the film Haven. (Don't know much about that one.) This fall he will be playing Drew, a down-on-his-luck salesman in the movie Elizabethtown one of the few movies Orlando has done that is set in modern times.
Orlando is currently filming the two Pirates of the Carribean sequals.
So, besides acting, what else does Orlando Bloom like to do? A lot of extreme sports stuff. His hobbies include snowboarding, surfing, parasailing, sky diving and bungee jumping. He also loves dogs. he adopted a poor stray while filming Kingdom of Heaven
Orlando’s father, Harry Bloom was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. He died when Orlando was four years old. During his life, Harry Bloom worked along side Nelson Mandela. "Harry was a great man and it was as if he'd done his job, then left the world," Orlando once said about him.
Orlando has recived many injuries in his lifetime, but none as serious as when he fell off a high roof.
“I broke my back," Orlando told E Online. "I [fell] out of a window...some friends had a roof terrace on the landing below their apartment, and I fell off the drain pipe. It gave way, actually, and I fell three floors. I was told I might not walk again. So, for about four days, I was contemplating that as a serious part of reality. Then they operated, and I walked out of the hospital in about 12 days."
Talk about big time ouch!
All nine actors who played the members of the Fellowship in The Fellowship of The Ring had the ellven nine tattooed on themselves.
Info and pictures provided by Orlando Bloom multimedia, E Online Sizzling 16 2002 Interview Magazine: Orlando Bllom, Talent in Bloom, and Orlando Bloom Central
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