He may have come to fame as an elf, but Orlando Bloom looks likely to become a genuine movie star. He tells Steve Pratt about working with Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp, and why he wants to mix the blockbusters with low-budget films.

THE moment Orlando Bloom's mum realised that her actor son was famous came when she flew aboard a plane with his face painted larger-than-life on the side.

The Lord Of The Rings' blond archer Legolas was one of the images from the movies put on aircraft carrying passengers to New Zealand, where the Tolkien trilogy was shot.

Despite this evidence of international stardom, 27-year-old Bloom himself remains defiantly down-to-earth even when promoting his latest movie, The Calcium Kid, at a posh London hotel.

His chat is as informal as his dress. He doesn't look like a man poised to be, in the words of one of Hollywood's top film magazines, "the leading movie heart-throb of the day".

The role of Legolas, won when he was barely out of drama school, made him famous. Last summer's biggest blockbuster Pirates Of The Caribbean made him a star. The forthcoming historical epic Troy is seen as a symbolic handing over of the Hollywood heart-throb baton by the film's star Brad Pitt to his younger co-star Bloom.

Canterbury-born Bloom is about to become that rarity - a true movie star. The rise of the actor, who joined the National Youth Theatre at 16, has been swift. His only pre-Lord Of The Rings screen role was a small part in Wilde with Stephen Fry. He now commands $5m a movie and counts Hollywood actress Kate Bosworth as his girlfriend.

So where does a low budget British movie like The Calcium Kid fit into a career that next sees him reunited with his Black Hawk Down director Ridley Scott in the Crusades adventure Kingdom Of Heaven?

Bloom regards the movie, about a milkman who steps into the boxing ring to fight the world champion, as important because it's his first starring role in a made-in-Britain picture.

"I'm very proud of this film," he says. "It was an opportunity for me to be a bit of a clown. I'd done Lord Of The Rings, Black Hawk Down and Ned Kelly - all very intense stories. Calcium Kid is a bit more of a physical comedy."

He is not, he admits, a very good boxer. "I did some training for the film so I could at least hold my fists up with the gloves on. They were quite heavy," he says.

"I tried to look like I'd done some boxing before. I have a whole new respect for boxers because it's not an easy sport. It's very demanding, physically and mentally.

"It's interesting trying to punch someone. It's not a very pleasant thing to do. I was a little bit of a scrapper when I was a kid, but grew out of that quite quickly and realised the error of my ways."

As well as boxing, he tried his hand as a milkman. "I had a few lessons driving around in a milk float and carrying bottles. They can carry one bottle in each finger and one in each palm," he says.

The sight of pin-up boy Bloom astride a milk float passed unnoticed by the locals because at the time no one really knew who he was. "It was before Pirates and the blond wig as Legolas was a good disguise," he explains.

These days he probably couldn't mingle with the rest of us without being recognised, and certainly not after his upcoming Troy boy appearance. So far, he's been happy to share himself with the fans without throwing a movie star style security cordon around himself. At the London premiere of Pirates Of The Caribbean, he defied the minders and insisted on returning again and again to sign autographs for waiting fans outside the cinema.

That may have to change, if only for his own safety. Co-stars such as Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt have provided on-set tips for coping with fame and adulation as well as acting choices.

"One of the things I'm most grateful for has been that opportunity to work with the likes of these guys because they are great role models, especially to a young actor like myself," he says.

'JOHNNY has always been incredibly courageous with the choices he's made as an actor and work he does. The same can be said of Brad. For me, the opportunity to work was all I wanted. When I was training at Guildhall, my goal was to get a job and get paid as an actor."

The way Pitt and Depp have dealt with fame has impressed him, and provided help now as everyone in the movie industry tries to grab a part of Bloom as the hottest British actor in movies.

He recalls a cast dinner at a restaurant in Malta during the filming of Troy, when he left talking to Pitt. Outside, it felt "like the whole of Malta descended on the guy". He was impressed how Pitt coped - "the humility and grace with which he carried himself".

The lesson helped prepare Bloom for the celebrity status he's acquiring. His background gives him a good chance of being able to keep his feet on the ground. "It comes back to the fact that I just wanted to be an actor," he says. "The idea that the rest of it would come was not something I contemplated. I try to keep it about the work and let the work do the talking.

"The fame aspect is something that's a by-product of the work. I'm realising more and more I have to learn to have an understanding of it so I don't let it shoot me in the foot. It invades your life but you have to be yourself and find ways of dealing with it."

A move to Hollywood might have been inevitable in the past, but the nature of the movie business doesn't necessitate that these days. "It's a global market place for an actor, which is a great thing. England, and London, is my home," he says.

"I do have family in America and have spent time there and feel I have some semblance of a life there. So I'm not opposed to spending some time there.

"I love the changing seasons and weather, even when it rains now, so I would never leave England. But I wouldn't say I wouldn't spend time somewhere else."

Like Pitt and Depp, he aims to mix big budget blockbusters like Troy with smaller budget films like The Calcium Kid. "I don't want to be one of those actors who just does epic films and studio films. When I go to the movies I go to independent movies for the most part," he says.

"I will always say for the next 50 years thank you to Peter Jackson for Lord Of The Rings. That put me in an arena so much further ahead of the game in terms of my face. Thanks to that I've had choices."

*The Calcium Kid (15) opens in cinemas on Friday. Troy opens on May 21.

Published: 24/04/2004