Orlando Bloom at The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug world premiere
Happy Birthday to Orlando Bloom, who is 37 today!
Orlando Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent, England in 1977. He has an older sister named Samantha, and his father, Harry Bloom, was a legendary political activist who fought for civil rights in South Africa, but he died when Orlando was only four.
Orlando attended The King’s School Canterbury and St. Edmund’s School in Canterbury, and overcame has dyslexia with great difficulty. His mother encouraged him to pursue artistic studies and, together with his sister Samantha, won many poetry and Bible reciting competitions. In 1993, he moved to London to study at the National Youth Theatre and then, he was cast in several television roles.
Orlando’s first appearance on the screen was in a small role in Wilde (1997). Finally, he attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and after a terrible fall from the roof of a building that nearly caused him permanent disability, he was cast by Peter Jackson in 1999 to star in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Orlando was originally chosen for the role of Faramir, but then he spent 18 months in New Zealand giving life to the character of Legolas Greenleaf. At the same time, he starred in Black Hawk Down, a war movie. After the worldwide success of the Ring trilogy, Orlando embarked on another trilogy, Pirates of Caribbean, playing the role of Will Turner opposite Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, and Geoffrey Rush. Following the worldwide success of the pirates, he starred in Troy, in the role of Paris, alongside Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, and Peter O’Toole.
Then Orlando starred in other films, where he had leading roles, including Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown. He also appeared as a guest star in the sitcom Extras in 2006. In 2011, he returned to the big screen with the role as the villain, the Duke of Buckingham, in the film The Three Musketeers, in which he worked with his future colleague Luke Evans (Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit trilogy) who played Aramis.
Orlando played again Legolas in Peter Jackson’s new Hobbit trilogy in 2013, and, in the same year he debuted on Broadway as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
Orlando has a tattoo with the number nine written in Elvish on his right wrist (as well as the other actors who were part of the Fellowship of the Ring). He received a great amount of “stage combat” while training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (as part of the drama program in conjunction with the British Academy of Stage and Theatre Combat). In October 2009, Orlando was named UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and on July 13, 2010, he was presented with an Honorary Degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury Cathedral. From 2003 to 2006, he was in a relationship with his colleague Kate Bosworth and in 2010 Orlando married Miranda Kerr, with whom he had his son Flynn.
The Middle-earth News Team is pleased to wish Orlando a very Happy Birthday!
