Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Copeland Bloom (born 13 January 1977) is an English actor. He made his breakthrough as the character Legolas in The Lord of the Rings film series The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). He reprised his role in The Hobbit film series. He gained further notice appearing in epic fantasy, historical, and adventure films, notably as Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Dead Man's Chest (2006), and At World's End (2007).
Bloom appeared in Hollywood films such as the war film Black Hawk Down (2001), the Australian Western Ned Kelly (2003), the romantic comedy Elizabethtown (2005), and New York, I Love You (2007). He also starred in the blockbusters portraying Paris in the historical epic film Troy (2004) Balian de Ibelin in another historical epic Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and the Duke of Buckingham in The Three Musketeers (2011). In 2020 he gained acclaim for the Afghanistan War drama film The Outpost (2020). He currently stars in the Amazon Prime Video series Carnival Row (2019–present).
He made his professional stage debut in In Celebration at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2007 and starred in a Broadway adaption of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 2013. He returned to the theatre in a West End revival of Tracy Letts' Killer Joe in 2018. In 2009, Bloom was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In 2015 he received the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award.
Early life
Bloom was born on 13 January 1977 in Canterbury, Kent, and was named after the 16th-century English composer Orlando Gibbons.[5][6] He has an older sister, Samantha Bloom.
Bloom initially believed that his biological father was his mother's husband, the South African-born anti-apartheid novelist Harry Bloom (1913–1981), who died when Bloom was four years old. However, when he was thirteen, Bloom's mother revealed to him that his biological father was actually Colin Stone, his mother's partner and family friend.[8][9][10] Stone, the principal of the Concorde International language school,[11] became Orlando Bloom's legal guardian after Harry Bloom's death.
Bloom's mother, Sonia Constance Josephine (née Copeland), was born in Kolkata, India, the daughter of Francis John Copeland, a physician and surgeon, and Betty Constance Josephine (née Walker). Through her, Bloom is a cousin of photographer Sebastian Copeland.[12][13] Bloom's mother's family lived in Tasmania (Australia), Japan, and India, and were of English descent, some of them having originally come from Kent.
Bloom was brought up in the Church of England.[14] He attended St Peter's Methodist Primary School,[15] then the junior school of The King's School before proceeding to St Edmund's School Canterbury. Bloom was discovered to be dyslexic,[10][16] and was encouraged by his mother to take art and drama classes.[10] After being spurred into action following his school prize submission to panto actor Richard Sieben in 1992, in 1993, he moved to London to follow a two-year A-Level course in Drama, Photography and Sculpture at Fine Arts College, Hampstead. He then joined the National Youth Theatre, spending two seasons there and earning a scholarship to train at the British American Drama Academy.[17] Bloom began acting professionally with television roles in episodes of Casualty and Midsomer Murders,[10] and subsequently made his film debut in Wilde (1997), opposite Stephen Fry, before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied acting.
Bloom has said that he tries "not to exclude himself from real life as much as possible."[10] During filming in Morocco for Kingdom of Heaven, Bloom rescued and adopted a dog, Sidi (a black Saluki mix with a white mark on his chest).
In 2004, he became a full member of SGI-UK (the UK branch of Soka Gakkai International), a lay Buddhist association affiliated with the teachings of Nichiren.
Bloom has also been a part of Global Green, an environmental company, since the early 2000s.[21] As part of his environmental involvement, he has renovated his London home to use solar panels, incorporate recycled materials, and use energy efficient lightbulbs.[10][21] Bloom has been approached by UNICEF to act as an international ambassador.
Involved in modelling work, in 2002 he starred opposite English actress Kate Beckinsale in a Gap television advertisement directed by Cameron Crowe.
Bloom has a tattoo of the Elvish word "nine" on his right wrist, written in fictional Tengwar Elvish script, a reference to his involvement in The Lord of the Rings as one of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" (Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood) got the same tattoo with the exception of John Rhys-Davies whose stunt double got the tattoo instead.[39][40][41][42] Bloom also has a tattoo of a sun on his lower left abdomen, which he got at age 15 before moving to London.
On 12 February 2009, Bloom actively participated in the 'Australia Unites' fundraiser to raise support for the victims of the Australian bushfires on 7 February 2009.[43]
Appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2009, Bloom speaking to a schoolboy in Ukraine in 2016
On 12 October 2009, Bloom was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He has been involved in the organisation since 2007 and has visited schools and villages in Nepal in support of sanitation and education programmes.[44] Bloom also visited the city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine in April 2016 to raise awareness of the education crisis facing children during the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014-2015.
Bloom has sustained several injuries: he broke his left arm and cracked his skull three times, broke his nose while playing rugby union, broke his right leg skiing in Switzerland, broke his left leg in a motorbike crash, and broke his right wrist while snowboarding.[19] He also broke his back when he slipped trying to reach a roof terrace of a friend's house and fell three floors.[46] He also broke some ribs while shooting The Lord of the Rings.
On 13 July 2009, four hooded teenagers broke into the Hollywood Hills home of Bloom and stole nearly half a million dollars' worth of possessions. The burglars, dubbed the "Bling Ring," targeted the homes of young celebrities. Most of Bloom's stolen items were retrieved.
Courtesy – Wikipedia
- Orlando Bloom