It’s been nearly 30 years since the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The movie launched what would become one of the most successful movie franchises of all time and what is seen by many as the definitive version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic story. It also launched the career of a young Orlando Bloom, who would become an overnight movie star at all of 20 years old.
Bloom recently made an appearance at Washington D.C.’s AwesomeCon (via People) alongside his Lord of the Rings castmates, Sean Astin, Liv Tyler, and John Rhys-Davies. They discussed their experiences making the films, which, for Bloom, was quite eye-opening because he was just out of school and was performing alongside major names. Bloom explained…
For me, as a young actor, I remember sitting there coming out of drama school with all of these legends. And thinking, 'What am I doing here? How did this happen? This is unbelievable.'
Bloom only had a handful of, mostly television, credits before being catapulted into The Lord of the Rings. The franchise put him in films alongside the likes of Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, and John Rhys-Davies. Even other younger actors, like Sean Astin and Elijah Wood, while younger, had been acting for years longer.
Still, while Orlando Bloom may not have been sure how he got to where he was, he certainly took advantage of the position. The movies were all about people taking an epic journey, and Bloom took his own journey on the set and just let it all happen. He continued…
It was a feeling of excitement. I mean, I was 20. We’d read the books and had a sort of understanding of what this could possibly be, but not really knowing anything because it was my first movie experience. I was just like an open vessel, and it’s about that sort of anticipation, that excitement, that sort of sense of possibility, that feeling that your whole life is beginning and you're beginning this remarkable journey.
It had to be incredible for a 20-year-old having his first major movie experience, making what was actually three movies all at the same time. The Lord of the Rings had incredible aspirations in making Tolkien’s books, previously seen as unfilmable, come to life. Somewhat miraculously, the films succeeded by every possible measure. Bloom says nobody knew just what they had become part of, but it was clearly a formative experience for all of them. Bloom said…
If I could bottle that feeling and give it to you all… I think we also never could’ve known — I don’t think any of us really knew what we were stepping into.
Bloom would become a franchise movie star as the Pirates of the Caribbean films would debut in the middle of the Lord of the Rings series, making him the star of two major trilogies at once. He was such a star so early that he's admitted that his career after those films was something of a struggle.
It’s no surprise that WB has been trying to recapture the magic of Lord of the Rings ever since the movies ended. We got three Hobbit movies that were financially successful, if not the critical darlings of the original trilogy. Now we have a Gollum movie on the way. Whether Orlando Bloom and company might appear is still a question, but considering what the franchise means to the actor, it would certainly make for an incredible conclusion to his journey.