Orlando Bloom is willing his memory of starring in “Troy” to wilt.
Bloom, who portrayed Paris, the Prince of Troy, whose affair with Queen Helen (Diane Kruger) ignited the Trojan War, revealed that he “didn’t want to do the movie” at all, despite the 2004 historical feature being a box office success.
During a career retrospective interview with Variety, Bloom admitted he “blanked out” the film from his own career and mind.
“Oh my god, ‘Troy.’ Wow. I think I just blanked that movie out of my brain by the way,” Bloom said. “So many people love that movie, but for me playing that character was just like [slits throat]. Am I allowed to say all of these things? I didn’t want to do the movie. I didn’t want to play this character.”
“Troy” was directed by the late “Das Boot” filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen and co-starred Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Peter O’Toole, Brian Cox, Sean Bean, and Brendan Gleeson. He clarified it wasn’t because he thought “Troy” was bad but the character was never one he wanted to portray.
“The movie was great. It was Brad [Pitt]. It was Eric [Bana] and Peter O’Toole,” Bloom said. “But how am I going to play this character? It was completely against everything I felt in my being. At one point it says Paris crawls along the floor having been beaten by somebody and holds his brother’s leg. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this.’ One of my agents at the time said, ‘But that’s the moment that will make it!’ And I completely fell for that line. I think that’s why I blanked that from my mind.”
However, Bloom also said in the interview with Variety that he fondly recalled his “remarkable character” Legolas in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy despite feeling “huge pressure” from fans.
“The character I knew was very beloved. He was one of my favorite characters from the books,” Bloom said. “I had this sense of wanting to land the character.”
Bloom’s “Troy” co-star Kruger recalled to Variety in 2023 that director Petersen had to battle the studio to cast her in the breakout role.
“The studio didn’t necessarily want to hire me. It was Wolfgang who fought for me. They thought I was too skinny, whatever,” Kruger said. “I had to fly to Hollywood for a screen test, they put me in a costume and tried to make me look ‘rounder.’ It was just one of these moments when you sit in an office full of older men who look you up and down. I felt like I was being presented in a way that wasn’t me at all.”
