Kingdom of Heaven: Orli’s Rise

“Orli! Orli Orli!” (note level of Orli-mania here)

Talk about meteroic rise! Just a few years ago Orlando Bloom, now 28, was an unknown from Canterbury, England playing an ensemble role as a very lean, very blond, cheerfully deadly elf in Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy.

After that, and a bravura yet restrained triumph as the reluctant, chivalrous pirate apprentice who gets the girl in Pirates of the Caribbean, Orli now finds himself as one of the hottet leading men in Hollywood, with the starring role in director Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, hitting theaters May 6.

In Scott’s latest historical epic (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down), Balian of Ibelin (Bloom), a young blacksmith (as he was in Pirates) in Jerusalem during the Crusades of the 12th Century, rises to knighthood and to protect his people from foreign invaders. And he gets the girl, again.

Here (Windows) (Real) the charmingly low-keyed Bloom discusses the making of the movie, for which he had to pack about 20 lbs. onto his slender frame.

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

Release: May 6

Director: Ridley Scott

Written by: William Monahan

Producer: Ridley Scott

Cast: Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, and Liam Neeson

“KINGDOM OF HEAVEN is an epic adventure about a common man who finds himself thrust into a decades-long war. A stranger in a strange land, he serves a doomed king, falls in love with an exotic and forbidden queen, and rises to knighthood. Ultimately, he must protect the people of Jerusalem from overwhelming forces – while striving to keep a fragile peace”