In his new Peacock series Orlando Bloom: To the Edge, the actor Orlando Bloom scales a 400-foot crag, freedives 100 feet on one breath, and jumps out of a plane at 13,000 feet to try wingsuiting for the first time. His wellness practices, as he tells GQ, have involved a similar amount of gutsiness: getting dosed with frog poison, embarking on a fast that involves eating bentonite clay.
More than 20 years after Bloom was first introduced to audiences worldwide as the platinum blond elf Legolas in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he’s now a 47-year-old dad and engaged to pop star Katy Perry. (He also doesn’t eat gluten anymore, so there is no lembas bread on the menu.) He’s retained a taste for adventure, even after suffering a near-death accident during which he broke his back. In Orlando Bloom: To the Edge, he discusses the aftermath of that, all while still pushing his body and mind to extremes.
GQ caught up with him to learn how he stays in shape with an eye for longevity, the healthy fats he feeds his brain, and what the deal is with frog poison.
For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
Orlando Bloom: We have a family bed. So Katy will be like, "Thank God for the day. I'm just grateful in every way." And Daisy will go, "Mommy, daddy," and we'll have this cute moment. I'll say [the Buddhist chant] "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo," because that's part of my practice. And then we'll embark on the day. Sometimes it's stumble around and find the coffee, and sometimes it's take the tinctures necessary to get my brain online.
I take an adrenal thing and I take some green powders. And I take things that just help me rehydrate, like salts and stuff, lemon tea.
I try to eat a whole food diet as much as possible. I try to avoid sugar, because I'm an addict to sugar. Once I start, I can't stop.
Cookies. Ice cream. So I try to have a balanced diet really—greens and proteins. Gluten makes me fall asleep.
I try to be functional with how I train my body. I try to think about full body movements, ground to overhead, or a lot of support from my glutes, my legs. Try to get my back supported because obviously I had this back injury. I have a stretch routine, which you see in the show, which is something that I'll do every morning first thing.
I try to mix it up. So I walk a lot or I cycle. Or I try to get cardio at a low heart rate, and then try to get a high cardio heart rate a couple of times if I can. I’ve moved away from really heavy weights. I'm thinking more, as I'm in my mid-forties, about longevity. How does my body feel and how do I enjoy this for the long-term?
Yeah, Dr. Mark Hyman, is somebody who is a friend and somebody I've spoken to at different times. We had a conversation about the benefits of Bragg's apple cider vinegar in your life. Sometimes I'll have a shot of apple cider vinegar and it'll just switch my brain on almost. It feeds the microbiome in a way that helps me to focus. [Ed. note: Bloom and Perry are among investors who acquired Bragg Live Food Products in 2019.]
Thomas DeLauer is a very well-built guy who's very knowledgeable on all things nutrition and health and wellness. And I think he has famously spoken about coming from a desk job and being a large man, so he's somebody who I've talked to about just the things that you can do. Do you live in New York?
You know, it's so easy just to grab and go, right? But how do you get whole foods when you're grabbing and going? And I actually now think about longevity in terms of feeding my brain. So I'm more about the healthy fats helping to feed my brain. If I'm feeding my brain, then my body will take care of itself, so that's been my path forward.
The obvious things, nuts and seeds and avocados. Olive oil that's not heated. Fish oils, I take daily. It's been more and more about that. And I don't do a lot of dairy just because it doesn't work for me. There was always this fat-free diet…
The Nineties was like, no fat. It's crazy to me now because actually healthy fat will prevent you from gaining weight, if that's what you're trying to do. But it'll also help your brain switch on. But fish, different kinds of sardines and fishes. Sometimes I'll have mackerel in the morning with eggs and salad or something. I don't think of meals as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I just try and think of it as food feeding my brain.
Kambo is a ceremony where your skin is burnt with these little dots, and then you put up the poison from the Amazon—it's like a frog poison. You have this sensation of death and you kind of purge your body. But it's incredible. They say that the Amazonian warriors have done this historically to heighten their senses for hunting. And I certainly had this feeling of being clearer and wide open from that, but it was pretty brutal in terms of what it does to the body in the moment. It only takes 15 minutes, but it's a real purge—it's coming out both ends at different times sometimes. Although that didn't happen the first time, but in subsequent times that I've tried it.
Yeah.
I had a neighbor who had a friend who was a teacher in different techniques that were really interesting to me, like tantric and things like that. And then the other thing that they did was this Kambo. So I was like, "Okay, I'm into that." I'm into trying things, as you can see. I think the lesson from the show was to be less impulsive and more considered. But when it comes to a possibility for growing or evolving, I'm always going to take that opportunity because I think what I'm here to do is to keep growing and learning. So if it is something like a plant medicine or a Kambo ceremony or a fast, I'll try it and see if it works.
It was more of a cleanse that started with a meal and this bentonite clay with these herbal pills. It went over five weeks. And in the last week it was virtually no solid food—it was just this clay and this water and these pills, which was pretty intense, but it was cleaning the system. I thought that was really unique. I kind of intermittent fast every now and again, but I mix it up. So one morning I won't have breakfast, one evening I won't have dinner because I want to keep my body guessing. I actually think that everybody's different and it's what works for you. And I'm always just trying to figure out what works for me.
Yeah. I have a bunch of little tincture things that I make for her in the morning that I take as well—one is for my adrenals and hers, and just vitamin C powders and things to bring the brain online. We have a little routine of those things. And then I would say that adventure is one of the things that we like to do together, but also just the simplicity of being outdoors and cycling or getting out and connecting in that respect. I'm definitely more of an outdoors doors kind of guy. It's sort of required for my functioning to move my body twice a day if I can, but certainly once a day if I can. And sometimes it's just a walk and sometimes it's a cardio exercise. Sometimes it's weights or a combination or both. But I would say adventure and holding each other accountable is the one way that we kind of grow.
Definitely better shape now than then. Although it was on that movie that we, all of us, the hobbits, had a trainer on call to keep us ticking forward. But I was a skinny, lithe, svelte-looking elf, and that was what was required. I wasn't supposed to be a buff kind of dude.