How do you like that? Orlando Bloom and I have something in common: we’ve both tried to erase Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy from our memories. Well, not exactly. While participating in Variety‘s “Know Their Lines” video series, Bloom drew a blank when asked about a line by his Troy character, Paris. Bloom thought the dialogue came from his Kingdom of Heaven character, Balian de Ibelin, or Legolas Greenleaf, his elven archer from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. To his surprise, the line came from Troy, a movie he’s tried to wipe from memory.
“Oh my god, ‘Troy.’ Wow. I think I just blanked that movie out of my brain by the way,” Bloom explained. “So many people love that movie, but for me playing that character was just like [slits throat]. Am I allowed to say all of these things? I didn’t want to do the movie. I didn’t want to play this character.”
“The movie was great. It was Brad [Pitt]. It was Eric [Bana] and Peter O’Toole,” Bloom continued. “But how am I going to play this character? It was completely against everything I felt in my being. At one point it says Paris crawls along the floor having been beaten by somebody and holds his brother’s leg. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this.’ One of my agents at the time said, ‘But that’s the moment that will make it!’ And I completely fell for that line of a agent. I think that’s why I blanked that from my mind.”
Orlando Bloom won’t say anything negative about Troy overall, but Diane Kruger, who played Helen in the film, isn’t afraid to say the production was a shitshow. Speaking with Variety last year, Kruger said the Troy sets were massive, and paparazzi were out in force to catch a candid of Brad Pitt in his armor. Kruger said making Troy was “exhilarating, but it was a circus. The sets were huge, paparazzi were flying around in a helicopter, waiting for Brad Pitt. It was crazy! When the movie was coming out, the press in Germany was very, very tough on me. They found my father, whom I haven’t seen since I was 13. They made up stories. It was really harsh.”
Good grief! That sounds like a nightmare. Some news outlets will do anything for a scoop, even if that means making their subjects uncomfortable.
Thankfully, Kruger says Pitt was sympathetic to her situation and offered her some kind words, telling Variety, “He came to my room and said: ‘I have heard some things and I want you to know that you are one of us now. Don’t let them get to you.’ He was so incredibly kind. It really changed a lot of things for me.”
Memory is tricky, and I’m not surprised Orlando Bloom forgot about his character’s dialogue from Troy. I can’t barely remember what I said this morning, let alone decades ago, on a film that was larger than life itself. Don’t worry, Orlando; I don’t think anyone will hold this against you.