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Article from the norwegian mag TOPP
Scans and translation © Angafuin

When TOPP met Orlando Bloom (25) last year, the premiere of The Lord of the Rings was still months away,
and Orlando was still a normal, anonymous 24 year old.
Since then everything has taken off, and now he's one of the new, hot stars. But did you know that he can thank
the doctors and the higher powers for even being able to walk? Orlando is in fact a very accident-prone person...
He is 1.80 m tall, but so skinny that he seems alot smaller. He answers our questions in a shy and quiet way.
It's obvious he hasn't done alot of interviews in his life, and that's only natural, seeing he's all new in the movie-
business - at least in the moviestar business.
Because Orlando Bloom is a moviestar now. First it's LOTR three years in a row, and as if that's not enough,
he also plays in the movie Black Hawk Down, starring Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor. What a team,
we say....but back to Orlando, or Orli as his friends call him. His beautiful face and slender body was the reason
film director Peter Jackson didn't want to give him the role of Faramir, which was the part Orlando originally
auditioned for. Instead, Jackson saw that he would be the perfect elf, and asked him to read for the Legolas part.
It was a done deal - well, almost.
- The whole process actually took half a year, so it didn't feel as simple as it may sound like, he says with a vague smile.
- It's unbelievable that Peter wanted to give someone as new as me the chance to do this. I'm eternally grateful to him!

Opportunity of A Lifetime
But Orlando isn't entirely new in the movie business. His dream of becoming an actor arose when he as a
little kid realized that it was actually an actor (Christopher Reeves) that played Superman - and he wanted to
do those kind of things too! In 1993 he moved from his hometown Canterbury to London, to try his luck as an
actor. There he soon found himself home in the theatre environment, and played in the theatres for a long
time - among others in Ibsen's Peer Gynt.
In 1997 he made his movie debut with a tiny part in Wilde, a movie about the british writer Oscar Wilde, and
he got tons of movie offers. But Orlando turned down all of them. He wanted to continue playing theatre and
finish school. That's why his career didn't develop until he got an offer he just couldn't turn down: the part of
Legolas in the trilogy The Lords of the Rings.
- I got the part two days before I graduated from the drama school I went to, so you can only imagine how
big this was for me. I was over the moon, this role was the opportunity of a lifetime.
For Orlando, his opportunity of a lifetime meant spending 18 months in New Zealand with lots of hard work - and
not to mention, training.
- I used a lot of time training with bow and arrow, which is Legolas' main weapon, and horseback-
riding. You'll get to see more of that in the upcoming movies. It was incredibly exciting.
How was the contact with Elijah and the other guys?
- I've really got friends for life. We've had so much fun together. Billy (Boyd) taught me how to surf when we
were in New Zealand, and soon everyone were lying there on surfing-boards, thrashing the water. It's such a nice gang,
and we do keep in touch - as often as we can, to put it that way.

Bad Luck...
Rumors say you're addicted to adrenalin-kicks?
- I love sports that has a certain wildness to it. One of the coolest things that happened in New Zealand
was that I got to bungee-jump off the tallest fall - 134 meters. Six times! To throw yourself off there and just
fly....it's an undescribable feeling.
It's quite unbelievable he dare do it, though, thinking of how accident-prone he is...
Here's a list of all the injuries he's got in his life:
- broken back
- broken several ribs
- broken nose
- broken both legs
- broken wrist
- broken a finger
- broken a toe
- stitched his head three times

Not uplifting reading, especially when thinking of the fact that Orlando does not think twice before he jumps off bridges,
other scaffoldings - or windows... Three years ago, he didn't exactly jump, rather fall, out of a window from third floor.
Not good, of course, and Orlando was brought to the hospital at once with a broken back and several broken
ribs. The doctors' predictions were depressing, they meant that he'd never be able to walk again. But after a successful
operation, it took miraculously only twelve days before the highly surprised doctors could send Orlando home -
on his own two legs. Today he's doing better than ever.
The odd part may be that the role he plays in Black Hawk Down bears a suspicious resemblance to himself.
His character falls 21 metres from a helicopter, and breaks his back and several other body parts in the fall.
He too, is an accident-prone person...

Did you know:
- Orlando was born on 13th of January 1977
- he's very attached to his sister Samantha (26). - She's the one that keeps my feet on the ground.
- he lives in London together with his dog Maude.
- Orlando is single!
- he's been quicky-engaged to the english supermodel Jemma Kidd (Jodie's sister)
- he's been in a love triangle with one of his best friends, Andrè Schneider. Orlando did in fact date
actor Joanne Moley, which left him for his good buddy Andrè.
- he wishes he had the career of Johnny Depp. - He's done so many interesting and nice picks of roles.
- his fave movie at the moment is the French movie Amèlie.
- it really is Orlando firing those arrows in The Lord of the Rings. He swears!