Orlando Bloom was one of the most ubiquitous stars of the early 2000s. As big-budget serialized franchises came to gradually dominate pop culture, such as Spider-Man, the Star Wars prequels, and Harry Potter; Bloom found himself at the center of two of the very biggest ones: Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings.
Bloom, who starred as Legolas in Peter Jackson's trilogy, recently opened up about his time filming The Lord of the Rings at a Fan Expo in Chicago, according to a report from EW.
“I was the butt of most of the jokes, cause I never got dirty. Legolas never gets blood, never gets dirty. Viggo would love to talk about my pretty hair, clean face and hands and nails and stuff. It was funny,” Bloom said.
He even recalls how the haircut he had played a role. “I had my crazy Mohawk. I had even raised my hairline to make me look a bit more elven and older. They wouldn’t have to do that now, cause my hair is receding. But they shaved me and kind of shaved it all the way back for Legolas, so I had this Mohawk and it was pretty good for the surf look too. I was 20 or 21, we were all young. There was a lot of fun. We were a family of friends.”
He also details, “I learned to surf with the hobbits. Initially, I was like, ‘Let’s get motorbikes and go riding up these hills.’ And Billy Boyd was like ‘Uh, no!’ And I was like, ‘Mountain bikes?’ ‘No!’ ‘Okay, surfing?’ And Billy was like, ‘Yeah, surfing!’ Billy was the sensible one… probably. We’d rent a little bach and cook a barbecue and just go surf and stuff. It was really magical.”
Suffice it to say Bloom looks back upon his work on the Lord of the Rings series with great fondness, and may indeed have more good times to come with the filming of The Hunt for Gollum, the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie.
With Peter Jackson and co. returning to the franchise and making a film directly connected to the Lord of the Rings trilogy alongside actor and director Andy Serkis, Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is clearly aspiring to be a return to greatness. It also appears to be bringing much of the original cast with it.
While Frodo and Gandalf have been confirmed for the film, Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen, who starred as Frodo and Gandalf, have not. They, along with Viggo Mortensen, who starred as Aragorn, have been rumored to be involved, but nothing is official yet.
There also hasn’t been any confirmation of Bloom’s Legolas returning, but the actor was uniquely nostalgic at the convention about his time on the sets of the original films, which may hint toward an upcoming return.
While Gore Verbinski’s Pirates trilogy continues to be praised by many, it is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy that has stood the test of time and become a pillar of modern media. In the years since those films, Bloom has by and large kept a lower profile with regard to his work. Some of his most notable work actually came a decade later, when Jackson enticed him back into the fold with the Hobbit trilogy.
While the single book on which the trilogy was based was distinctly devoid of Legolas, Bloom’s character from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson and co. were looking to flesh out story elements so as to hit the mandated three-film quota, and Legolas proved to be an easy and familiar source of inspiration. As such, Bloom was prominently featured in both The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. However, the films got a decidedly more mixed reception than the original trilogy did.
In the years since, there have been various attempts at keeping the Lord of the Rings franchise going to some degree, whether it be Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power streaming series or Warner Bros.’ animated feature film, War of the Rohirrim. However, like Jackson’s own Hobbit films, none of these have been able to attain the same degree of critical or financial success that those original films did. But now, it looks as though things might change.
Stay tuned for more news about The Hunt for Gollum and Bloom's potential appearance in the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie!