Orlando Bloom (above) has been living in the bubble of stardom these past few years. That’s the legacy of his Legolas in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
At 28, he’s been in 15 films, almost all blockbusters or attempted blockbusters.
“I’ve lived my boyhood dreams, played them out on the screen, in my career,” he said during the recent Toronto Film Festival. “You want to play a soldier or an elf or a prince or knight or pirate or whatever when you’re a boy.”
But this heartthrob of the moment has never done a romantic comedy. After three “Rings” movies, a pirate film, “Troy” and “Kingdom of Heaven,” he had to wonder if the joke “you’ll never see him without a sword” would come true.
“I started that joke, I’ll have you know,” he said.
All that changes with “Elizabethtown,” in which the British-born Bloom plays his first American and his first real romantic lead in the Cameron Crowe film.
“I know, I know, about time, isn’t it?” he said. “But to have the chance to make my leading-man debut with Cameron is this incredible gift. I’m glad I waited.”
Bloom had to master a generic American accent, and he had to “discover” the American South.
Crowe drove him all over Kentucky and the South. “[We] ran out of petrol, once, and some guy tried to save my soul at the gas station,” he said. “We went to this really cool cafe where there was a knitting circle going on. Didn’t know who I was.
“There were people making me cookies, homemade ice cream. It was amazing to be embraced by a community like that.”
So, it had nothing to do with a look that makes teen girls swoon? “Dude, it didn’t feel like that. That’s all I can tell you.”
