Between big franchises like Lord Of The Rings and Pirates Of The Caribbean, it’s fair to say that Orlando Bloom has plenty to proud of when it comes to his film career.
However, when it comes to one particular film from his oeuvre, the British actor has admitted he has “blanked that from my mind”.
In the 2004 historical epic Troy, Orlando appeared as Paris opposite an impressive cast, led by Brad Pitt.
And while he’s got nothing against the film itself, the Carnival Row star admitted to Variety that this was not a performance he particularly likes dwelling on.
“So many people love that movie, but for me playing that character was just like,” he explained, making a throat-slitting gesture.
“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.”
Orlando added: “The movie was great. It was Brad [Pitt]. It was Eric [Bana] and Peter O’Toole. 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 an agent. I think that’s why I blanked that from my mind.”
However, Orlando isn’t the only member of the Troy cast with less-than-glowing feelings about it.
The late Peter O’Toole spoke negatively about the film, describing director Wolfgang Petersen as a “clown” and claiming he walked out of a screening after 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, Brad Pitt previously told the New York Times: “I pulled out of another movie and then had to do something for the studio. So I was put in Troy. It wasn’t painful, but I realised that the way that movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be.”
The Oscar winner added that he made his “own mistakes” while performing in Troy, while claiming the film “became a commercial kind of thing”.