Orlando Bloom: I love being an actor

At 46, Orlando Bloom is busy strategising the next stage of his career. The Pirates of the Caribbean star feels stardom came too early for him. "I'm playing a lot of chess at the moment in terms of being strategic about what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. I sort of feel like I was so young when so much happened."

Now that he has a clearer sense of how to approach things, he wants to build into what the next 10 years look like. "I love what I do," he affirms. "I love being an actor. I love the medium, and creating characters; I love getting the opportunities to do that and I'm grateful for it."

The English actor was on a blink-and-miss visit to Dubai, alongside David Harbour (Stranger Things) and Archie Madekwe (Midsommar), for a hush-hush shoot of Sony's video game adaptation Grand Turismo, back in December 2022, and we were offered a quick chat at the Autodrome.

The city is special to Bloom in many ways. He mentions visiting "sunny Dubai" for the first time when he was 15. "Thirty years ago, there was one road, one shopping mall and I think there was a place called the Chicago Beach Village? It was where the expats would hang out," he fondly recollects. A young Bloom had hopped on a plane to visit the family of a girl he went to school with ("her father was working in the bank, and it was one main road, crazy man!").

"It's the ever-evolving city, isn't it? And now it is unrecognisable," says the star who hasn't had much time to see the city this time around, seeing as how the crew is on a short leash to film some racing shots on the track.

The real-life underdog story of Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe), who went from avid gamer to real-life racer, Sony's Grand Turismo stars Bloom as Danny Moore, an idealistic Motorsports marketing executive, tasked with powering the reel-to-real race track journey.

"Danny is a dreamer, a passionate sort of ideas man. He is based on a real-life character and he visions this idea into reality," Boom explains. "It is fun to play passion. I had just done this intense role (Wizards!) and then to play this (GT) was kind of fun as well. It was an opportunity to come in and shine a little bit with a character like this.

"Danny has this big passionate dog-with-the-bone kind of energy. His idea has to work for everything to work and I felt good about what I could do with that. I haven't done a big studio movie in a while, so it is cool."

It also helps that Bloom seems to be in total awe of GT director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) who he refers to as a total "visionary".

"District 9 was just mind-blowing and everything he followed it up with was really ambitious, in terms of stories and movies. That's quite rare to come across. Not everyone is a visionary and has the ability to create scale and size and within that manage the intimacy of the story. Hopefully, that's what the audience will get from Gran Turismo."

Also, the fact that Gran Turismo already has an inbuilt audience is a big draw for Bloom. "The script is well crafted and grounded in the true story of Jann Mardenborough. Jann's a dream maker, his story is something to aspire to for all the kids in the world who think they are not good enough or they can't do it; the ones who think they'll never have a shot. And in a way Danny is a dreamer too - the fact that he managed to pull that whole idea together and get a bunch of sim (simulation) racers into cars on the track is amazing."

With Barbie and Oppenheimer bringing the crowds back to the theatre, GT seems to be right up the alley in terms of scale and high-end jinks to draw audiences in when it releases on August 10 in the UAE. Bloom says whether you are a fan of GT, the game, or even just driving, you'd enjoy this movie. "People who appreciate driving racing cars would appreciate the authenticity of how we filmed this because it feels very real, the way that it has been done in the paddock - 5 cameras there the whole time catching the whole thing."

And if you are a kid from Wales, who is dreaming like Jann of racing in cars, then this movie is a kind of wish-fulfilment, he adds.

Bloom also finds it interesting that in a world that's increasingly turning virtual, here is a real-life movie coming out of the virtual world. "I like that idea of coming from virtual into real because let's face it, it feels like everything is going the other way and that feels pretty terrifying! So if we can keep grounding these ideas in reality and truth we will have that something."

While GT is set for release as per schedule in the UAE, Sony has pushed back the premiere to August 25 in other territories due to the ongoing writers and actors' strike (SAG-AFTRA) in Hollywood. Bloom and Harbour may be unable to promote the movie under the current circumstances. "Post Covid movies are a whole different game isn't it?" Bloom pointed out at the time. "But we still dream; we still go and try to make a movie that people will enjoy."

The actor who has a deal to develop projects for Amazon in his kitty says he is grateful since he "gets to dream ideas up for TV and movies." And while streaming is familiar territory now, "there is this old school idea of going to the theatres - it is great entertainment, a great family night out - dinner, movie, and popcorn, there's a romantic feel about it!" The recent success of Mission Impossible 7, Barbie and Oppenheimer certainly vouches for that. Hopefully, GT will join the bandwagon.

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