Once upon a time, Orlando Bloom was one of the biggest young actors in Hollywood. With a pair of major franchises under his belt, his star was seriously on the rise. Then, it just sort of stopped. Orlando Bloom has now opened up in a new interview where the actor admits that the success he saw in his twenties led to some difficulties in his thirties when that same success was more difficult to find. He hopes to recapture it again. According to Bloom...
I had so much [success] in my twenties, most of my thirties was [spent] figuring out which way was up. I love what I do. It came from that connection kids felt with [The Lord of the Rings'] Legolas, or [Pirates of the Caribbean's] Will Turner. I'm looking for that thing again. You're no longer number one in the world. You look at everything around you and ask, 'What is going on?'
In January Orlando Bloom turned 40 and so, in a new chapter of his life, he seems to be looking back at where he's been in order to figure out where he wants to go next. The first Lord of the Rings film debuted in 2001 when Bloom was all of 24 years old. Between that trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Bloom was a major star in some of the most successful movies in Hollywood. At one point in his interview with Elle, he makes reference to the fact that he was apparently the most Googled person in the world for four straight years in the early 2000s. That's no small feat, but it shows just how big a star the man was.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End came out in 2007, the same year Orlando Bloom turned 30, and with both his big franchises seemingly done at the time (although he'll be back for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), the actor apparently had difficulty figuring out what to do next. It's unlikely most people could name many films that Bloom made in the last 10 years, with the exception of his return to the role of Legolas in The Hobbit movies and his upcoming return to the Pirates franchise.
We certainly wondered what Orlando Bloom was doing during those years and it appears that he was wondering the same thing at the time. It's interesting because quite often actors who spend long periods of time working with big franchises don't mind going and working on smaller films later. However, it doesn't appear that Bloom was looking to do that internationally. At the very least he's decided that isn't what he wants now. He specifically says that he's looking to re-establish the connection with the audience he had back in his franchise days.
Of course, Orlando Bloom's first step in that direction will be a return to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise when Dead Men Tell No Tales is released next month.
