PHOTOS: David Appleby

Orlando blooms…

 

After Gladiator, the master of cinema epics, Ridley Scott, returns with Kingdom of Heaven, a sumptuous depiction of the Crusades and the 200-year conflict between Europe and the East.  At the center of this breathtaking ride he has cast heartthrob Orlando Bloom. Visibly beefed-up, Bloom, who has secured scores of fans in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean and Troy, exacerbates our infatuation with him as Balian.  Reunited with his estranged father, Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), and through a series of encounters, Balian is thrust into a position where he is elevated into knighthood and becomes responsible for the fate of the Holy City. 

 

At the beginning of the cathartic film, Bloom says you’ll meet Balian as a tortured soul who is in a “nihilistic state. He has lost his wife. He has lost his child. You meet a man who is in hell, essentially… Balian is lost. His sole purpose in going along is to find answers to the big questions hanging over his head. He is a young man on a journey of spiritual, personal, and political growth and discovery, trying to understand what life is about. He’s seeking forgiveness and understanding. So he catches up with Godfrey and they set off.”

 

Lest you think this it’s all war and no love, rest assured that in Jerusalem, Balian also meets the sensual Princess Sibylla (Eva Green) who is stuck in an unhappy marriage to Guy di Lusignan (Marton Csokas), Balian’s nemesis. Sibylla and Balian are helplessly drawn to one another, despite political complications. “Balian is not looking for love,” says Bloom, “but he falls very deeply in love, because Sibylla is this incredibly intoxicating, otherworldly creature to him. It’s a very emotional relationship, something he’s yearning for and yet is reluctant to fall into. Meeting this woman ignites a flame of hope for him.”

Ridley Scott and Bloom have worked together in the past and Scott has high praise for his hero. “Orlando is a very honest, outgoing person. That’s who he is. He’s also very good physically in the field. He fell out of a helicopter for me in Black Hawk Down. He can do all the things that I required him to do, but I think his honesty and earnestness give him a distinct level of authenticity in the role of Balian.”

 

In turn, Bloom says, “I felt so privileged to be surrounded by this cast and to work so closely with Ridley.  To see how he works and create something with him. He has this uncanny ability to take history and merge it with contemporary society’s idea of what they want in a movie; he juxtaposes politics with truth, and if you come from truth you really get to the crux of the matter. His films are a feast for the eyes, but they also leave you questioning and wondering, with a sense of purpose. It’s truly extraordinary and I feel incredibly lucky.”

 

On a more personal level, Bloom admits, ““I got to live every boy’s dream.  A knight, quite simply, gets the girl, gets to be everything he is meant to be. Balian is a reluctant hero on a quest, which is the best kind of hero, for my money.”

 

And ours too!

 

--GD

 

TM and © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

 

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