Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom (born January 13, 1977) is an English actor.

Bloom became famous playing Legolas in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. He has also had major roles in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Troy, Elizabethtown and his first lead role in Kingdom of Heaven. Bloom has just finished filming the sequels Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, and is currently filming Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent, England to Sonia J. Copeland (who was born in India to an English physician father, Francis Copeland). Although he had originally thought that his father was South African Jewish lawyer Harry Bloom (who died in 1981), his mother revealed to Orlando in his teenage years that his biological father was not Bloom, but a family friend, Colin Stone.

Bloom attended St Edmund's School in Canterbury, but struggled due to his dyslexia. In 1993, he moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre, spending two seasons there and earning a scholarship to train at the British American Drama Academy. He had a television role in an episode of Midsomer Murders and made his film debut in Wilde (1997), opposite Stephen Fry, before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied - apart from acting - sculpture and photography. In 1998, he broke his back in a three story fall, and it was briefly feared that he would never walk again. However, he made a complete recovery and walked out of the hospital twelve days later. He had steel plates inserted into his backbone to support it, which have since been removed, except for a single screw. He regularly performs yoga and Pilates to strengthen his back.

Career

Shortly after graduation in 1999, he landed his first major role as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003). Whilst shooting a scene, he broke a couple of ribs. He fully recovered and continued shooting. This transformed Bloom from an unknown actor into one of world's hottest celebrities. IMDBPro's StarMeter reported that Bloom was the most searched-for actor in January 2002, one month after The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released. In the same year he was also chosen as one of the Teen People "25 Hottest Stars Under 25." He was named People's hottest Hollywood bachelor in the magazine's 2004 list.

The cast of the Rings movies was nominated for Best Ensemble Acting at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for three years in a row, finally winning in 2003 for the third film, The Return of the King. Bloom has also won other various awards including Empire Awards and Teen Choice Awards, and has been nominated for many others.

Because the two movies in which Orlando had starring roles in 2005, Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown, were box office flops in the U.S. (although the former was a box office and critical success in Europe and the rest of the world), much talk circulated around Bloom as an example of the failure of recent Hollywood stars to bring in the money in the box office.

Arguably, Bloom is the most successful film actor in the world if judged by ticket sales. According to the website, Box Office Mojo, the movies Bloom has appeared in earned an average of US$193,339,778 - the highest of any actor they list except those who worked in only a single series.

Filmography

• Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (2007)
• Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
• Love and Other Disasters (2006)
• Elizabethtown (2005)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
• Haven (2004)
• Troy (2004)
• The Calcium Kid (2004)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
• Ned Kelly (2003)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
• Black Hawk Down (2001)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
• Midsomer Murders: Judgement Day (2000)
• Wilde (1997)

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