Orlando Bloom Shines in Both Sympathy For Delicious and The Good Doctor

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Interviews

Published on Sunday, 15 May 2011 16:18

Written by Brad Balfour

It's been quite a week for British born actor Orlando Bloom. With two films -- Sympathy For Delicious (opening in theaters) and The Good Doctor (debuting at Tribeca Film Festival 2011) -- playing before audiences, the 34 year-old actor has been seen in a different light from his Pirates of The Caribbean-tattered days. Bloom displayed his darker chops to good effect.

Born in England in 1977, Bloom moved to London at age 16 and spent two seasons with the National Youth Theatre, and then trained with the British American Drama Academy. Like many young actors, he got a number of television roles to further his career.

When he attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1998, he fell three stories and broke his back. Despite fears he would be paralyzed, he recovered and returned to the stage.

In 1999 director Peter Jackson saw the young Bloom in a show and asked him to audition for his new set of movies. After graduating, Orlando began work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, spent 18 months in New Zealand and, in playing the part of Legolas, became a heartthrob and fan favorite.

Once he starred in the Pirates series with Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp, Bloom became a sought-after actor for both mainstream and indie films. Now married to actress/model Miranda Kerr, the couple have a young son and Bloom has gone from sex symbol to serious actor.

In Sympathy for Delicious, he plays a rock star, The Stain, who embraces and exploits the flawed, wheelchair-bound, deejay-turned-mystical healer.

In The Good Doctor, he plays an internist, Dr. Martin Ploeck, who goes from healer to a patient-obsessed sociopath.

Both films revolve around eccentric, maybe even preposterous, premises that would challenge the best of actors. Bloom has addressed both films and their peculiar demands.

Q: Why did you sign on to do Sympathy for Delicious?

OB: I'm a huge fan of Mark [Ruffalo]. When Mark came over to the house and I sat down with him, I wasn't sure if I was auditioning for him or if he was auditioning for me. I said, 'I'd love to work with you and be a part of this film."

I felt very grateful for the experience. I feel that the opportunity that this character posed for me has set me off in a whole interesting direction.

Q: What bands or singers did you look at or base your character on?

OB: I embraced the inner demon of the character. Honestly, some of the greatest bands that I listened to growing up were from the North of England, whether it be the Beatles or the [Rolling] Stones.

But specifically for this role, it was the Gallagher brothers from Oasis and Ian Brown from the Stone Roses. I watched them doing interviews and stuff like that, particularly Liam Gallagher and Ian Brown. When I was looking at stuff on video of Liam and Ian and [the rest], they're so aggressive and out there.

The Gallagher brothers have this attitude, like, "We are the best band in the world. If you don't know it, you should know it," that kind of thing. So I thought that would play really well for this character. It helped bring some truth to this character, because that's truthful to them, even if it's showmanship and it's for the camera.

It really helped the accent, the dialect, but it helped me to create the truth of it because some of the dialogue was quite outlandish. It was fun.

I felt like [The Stain] could be a really belligerent, kind of egotistical, narcissistic rock star if I placed him in the north -- no offense to anyone in the North of England.

I asked Mark, "Look, do you mind if I do this, with this, with this slant on it?" He was a little apprehensive on it, to be honest. He was like, "No. I want this. I want you."

But he sort of came around. It just worked really well.

Q: Did the lead singer from Mars Volta, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, provide your voice at one point in the movie?

OB: Cedric went in and came up with this kind of crazy vocalization, and then they told me, "just go in there and riff on that." So that's what I did, and it kind of worked.

Cedric wrote the lyrics right on the spot. it was amazing. He completely captured the character, the movie, and, I would say, an aspect of who we are. Amazing.

Q: Since Juliette Lewis has fronted her own band, did she give you tips on how to be a lead singer or did she keep those stories to herself?

OB: Of course, she was wonderful. But she would be horrified to think that our band, the band in the movie, was anything like a real band -- or her band, at least. So I have to clarify that. But she was great.

When we were in Los Angeles, we had a little studio that we rehearsed in and [Juliette] was really great at band motivation and telling me a few pointers on the swagger. She was just great.

We went down to Guadalajara and did some singing for the movie with Omar Rodriguez Lopez, also from Mars Volta, and that was amazing.

[But] I don't think I'm going to be doing an album anytime soon, though I really enjoyed wailing around and having a lot of fun.

Q: As much as this movie is about fame, it's also about exploitation. How do you think your character perceived his responsibility and blame in terms of the exploitation?

OB: The road to hell is also paved with ego, greed and hunger. When Ariel dies, I think it's a profound change for The Stain as a human being.

In the end, when he's in the courthouse, I think that's when it really becomes very clear that he feels the responsibility of what's happened throughout the course of the movie.

Q: Was working with an actor/director who knows what it takes to be an actor and can communicate on that level offer a better directorial approach?

OB: It was amazing. There was a shorthand. There was a sensitivity to the process of being an actor being directed by an actor such as Mark, because he really understood the process and it was immediate.

There‛s a feeling when actors have "moments." Even sometimes before the take they're ready to go, or right after the take they're still going, and there's a "moment."

Mark could make sure that he caught those moments. He just knew when any of us were in the pocket in terms of the process and was like, "Get the camera on them now. We're going." He'd continue rolling, and he caught those moments that continued after it.

And he takes you inside the world. Sometimes you can watch movies and you really feel like you're an observer. In this movie you're there, you're right with Delicious D and Skid Row, you're right with the character, you're with the band, you're in there, you're in the room.

And I was like wow, I really felt like I had that experience. It was cool.

I was terrified about how to say some of the lines that had been beautifully crafted for the character of The Stain -- like "I am the lord by wad of cum" -- and the singing aspect and the performance aspect.

I've never felt like I had somebody's support so much. It enabled me to feel like [I] could really drop all [my] inhibitions and just go for it, and I think it comes through.

That was wonderful, to have someone so in tune and so understanding of the anxieties that can come up when you're trying to be a performer.

Q: Now that you've worked with a first-time director like Mark, do you have plans to direct a feature, and even perhaps be in it if you did?

OB: I'm still learning to be a better actor. I've got quite a long road to go there, but it was very inspirational seeing Mark work. He really did make it look easy.

Q: To play a doctor and a rock star and turn those two classic archetypes around, that was an accomplishment. What went through your head in subverting these two icons and making them different from our expectations?

OB: I really wanted to have the opportunity to shift the perception that had been created -- not necessarily a bad perception.

But having worked on huge movies for the majority of my life, for the majority of the first half of my career -- I should say a couple of big trilogies -- I was yearning for a different kind of experience in filmmaking.

So to have a rock star and then this weird, introverted, controlled sociopath of a doctor, for me it's all about expanding my range, and growing and showing that there's more than just a pirate in my heart.

Q: What about The Good Doctor?

OB: With The Good Doctor, I just read the script. It terrified me and I put it down and thought, "I can't do that. I don't even know where to start."

I was kind of talked into it by my producing partner, Sharon Miller. I talked to Mark about it as well, at one point.

I talked to people that were important in my life about what I would do with it and whether it was a good idea and it was an opportunity to do something completely different, flip a perception completely on its head.

Q: Out of the many characters that you've interpreted, would you consider this to be one of the hardest?

OB: One of the interesting things about this is the script. John Enbom wrote an amazing script and I thought that he wrote an amazing character, and really an interestingly complex character.

I think it's easy for people in life to have that one little thing snowball out of all control into an area that they never thought it would go into. Before they know it, they're in too deep. I thought that would be fun and interesting and weird to try.

Q: The film does such a good job of portraying the horror of being a young doctor. What research did you do to capture that?

OB: In order to get my head around this character, I went and did some rounds in L.A. at the hospitals, at UCLA. I actually started off doing rounds with surgeons.

It was interesting, because surgeons are like rock stars in hospitals. They go in there and cut people, like, "Yeah, I fixed them." They're heroes.

With internal medicine -- what Dr. Martin Ploeck is -- they're like detectives. They think it through and piece it together and are like, "Okay, this is going to work."

There were some very interesting internal jokes, and how they talk about patients and things. It was very revealing. So it was very interesting to see these characteristics of those types of doctors.

My take is that they're like eternal children, in a way, because they're always studying. They're always working. They never really experience life. They're never outside.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that was my take on it. They just work so hard. They're very into it.

I have a lot to thank doctors for, actually, because I broke my back and I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't have a doctor to fix me up.

Q: In the end, will the character do it again?

OB: I'm looking at The Good Doctor 2 and 3 and thinking it's a blood bath.

Movies portray that the bad guy always gets caught and the good guy always gets the medal at the end of the day, but I think that isn't always reflected in life.

I think he probably goes on to be the best doctor that he can be. I think this can happen in life.

Q: Until he falls in love again?

OB: Until he falls in love again, yeah.

Q: Any plans for a Good Doctor 2?

OB: We only do trilogies over here. We thought that it could be called The Good Inmate.

For more stories by Brad Balfour go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-balfour

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