Legolas is a rather nasty character. The Prince of Mirkwood possesses on the battlefield. He walks on the snow. He restrains his comrades when they are angry and displays remarkable wisdom for his unknown but venerable age. Despite this lack of elven age, the character was played in the film adaptations of Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” by very mortal actor Orlando Bloom – who was in his early 20s at the time.
Speaking during a career retrospective at Fan Expo Chicago 2025 (via Entertainment Weekly), Orlando revealed that despite his ultimate immortal warrior persona in those films, he was subject to teasing behind the scenes. As he recalled:
“I was the butt of most of the jokes, because I never got dirty. Legolas never draws blood, never gets dirty. Viggo [Mortensen] I would love to talk about my pretty hair, my face, my hands, my nails and all that. It was funny.”
Orlando also provided some other interesting comments on his elf warrior character. He notably spoke about his experience traveling around New Zealand with the other actors of the films during their free time after filming. Indeed, despite the teasing, he only had positive things to say about this period of his life, which he summarized as follows:
“I was 20 or 21, we were all young. We had a lot of fun. We were a family of friends.”
Could we see Bloom’s Legolas again?
Orlando Bloom was a flying character in Peter Jackson’s JRR Tolkien adaptations. He even returned as the main link between Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” trilogies. Even a quarter century after he first played Legolas, he could easily return in a project like the upcoming “The Hunt for Gollum” film, currently in development. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there is no confirmation yet of his involvement in this film. However, there is no doubt that Bloom wants to be involved.
In 2024, when the project had just begun to move forward, Bloom revealed that while he didn’t know much about the plans for the film, he had spoken to director (and returning Gollum actor) Andy Serkis about it. Bloom is now twice the age he was when he first played Legolas, and he shared that when he asked how to bring back actors like him at this point, Serkis replied, “Well, AI!” Of course, this prompted the fiercely protective members of the Tolkien fandom to take up arms. (They don’t want AI to invade their Middle Earth, after all.)
The real novelty here, however, is not the AI. (To borrow a phrase from Gandalf: “My heart tells me that Gollum AI has a role to play, for better or worse, before this is all over.”) No, it’s that Bloom seems to be chomping at the bit to return to Middle-earth. He even ended his comments by remarking:
It was a pretty magical time in my life, and it’s one of those things where there’s no downside.
AI or not, let’s hope Bloom returns to her refined character in the “Fellowship of the Ring” prequel (in one capacity or another).
