Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Orlando Bloom

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

Orlando Bloom landed the role of Legolas in “The Lord of the Rings” just two days after graduating from drama school, and his career hasn’t slowed down since. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the actor about that journey full of epic fantasy roles, his latest Amazon show “Carnival Row,” and his recent engagement to pop star Katy Perry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along again this week. We've got a good one for you. Hollywood A-lister, big name. Orlando Bloom. He's starring in a new series called Carnival Row on Amazon. Really interesting series that kind of brings together the Lord of the Rings vibe with fairies, with him playing a sort of 19th century British detective solving a murder inside that universe. I know that doesn't sound. like it makes any sense, but he's going to explain it in just a minute. Also here with me to help explain what that means. Producer of this great podcast, Maggie Law. Hello, Maggie. Hey, Willie. How's it going? And the producer of our interview, the great Sylvie Haller. Sylvie. We're so happy you're here. Thank you for having me.

A special guest. Welcome, Sylvie. So for people to understand what that means, Sylvie plans the interviews. She researches the guests. She helps come up with questions. She establishes where we're going to do them. She makes it look beautiful. And she always does such a great job of that. All these interviews. you see, many of them are done and produced by Sylvie. So Sylvie, just wanted to give people a little look behind the curtain.

Orlando Bloom is a guy. I don't think I'd met before. And if I had, it was just in passing around the studio. He's such a big star and he's splashed all over the tabloids and he's engaged to Katie Perry and all those things. You just don't know, always know how people are going to be. I found it to be totally charming, a gentleman, polite, smart, and just fun to be around. I completely agree. You can always sort of tell how they're going to be based on how they walk into the room.

If they reach out and greet people, if they make eye contact with, you know, the lowly staff. And he did that. He was warm and he was engaging right away. And then it seemed like he was very comfortable talking. He didn't take, he didn't have to sort of put on his act before he talked to you. That's right. Yeah. And he also, we should point out, came in with his dog.

I was going to say, I heard that was a visitor. Mighty. Mighty. The irony of the name is that Mighty is a toy poodle that's about the size of, I don't know, three or four pound dumbbell, wouldn't you say? Something like that. Love it. Tiny little dog. Obviously, Orlando is best known for the Lord of the Rings movies, but also for Pirates of the Caribbean.

And there have been so many of those. And he's just, he talks about in the interview going from being a drama student in London. I was going to say, I didn't realize Lord of the Rings was like the first. thing two days later on a huge set with all these famous actors right out of drama school and he talked about the same thing and this came up in the interview so um sylvie about um the comparison to kit harrington the star of game of thrones i had the almost same conversation with him which was i got out of drama school and the thing you're supposed to do is go on the west end and eventually get to the west end do and then maybe you'll get into a movie kit harrington dove right out of drama school into game of

Thrones. And the same goes for Orlando Bloom, who two days, I think it was, right? Two days. Two days after drama school walked on to the set of Lord of the Rings. And he really thought that he was going to be a stage actor. I mean, he was so classically trained. And that was his focus. That's what he'd done in high school. It's where he thought he'd be. And then it changed in a minute. Yeah. And he so now he's sort of done it in reverse of he's done all these huge movies. He did Romeo and Juliet a few years ago here on Broadway. He teased but wouldn't disclose yet. Things coming. There's something else coming on Broadway. All right. But you can watch when you talk to these guys who are serious about acting, their eyes sort of light up when they talk about stage acting.

He loves the movies, but there's something about the stage. The theater's always the first love. Yeah. But he also said how he still sweats bullets on the opening night. He's afraid he's going to forget everything. And you think these professionals, how could he go through that kind of experience? But he says every single time. Yeah.

He says, am I going to forget the line? How is this going to go? On a movie set, you get under the chance at it. if you forget the line. Right. So we'll see him in the theater, but let's let him now explain first, this show, Carnival Row on Amazon.

It's, you just have to see it to believe it. I have not seen it yet, but I've intrigued by the description. And you have to listen to Orlando Bloom to understand what it is. Here's Orlando right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Orlando, thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

We've been talking about Carnival Row and sort of like this universe that you all have built where fairies meet humans in the middle of a murder mystery. How do you begin to describe the world that you have on the screen on this show? Yeah, it's, well, I play a detective called Philo who is a man who's investigating the murder of a fay singer, a fay show singer. Those are the fairies. They are the fairies. We call them the fay.

And she turns up dead on the row. And Fylo is a, he's an interest, he's a sort of man of secrets. He's quite a dark and mysterious character. But essentially he's a good man. And we're really commenting on that life with the other. So the Fay, fairies, the critch, as we call them, represent really the immigrants and the migrants who are fleeing their hometown, their homelands, their war-torn homelands,

and coming to Carnival Row. And so Fylo is investigating this murder, and it really, it's a sort of noir murder that sort of goes through all these different worlds and different iterations and different characters and becomes a much bigger story, almost like a sort of serial murder story. But it's interesting how it's all intertwined

and where it connects and who it connects to through the story. It's Yeah, it's It's been amazing I mean Travis Beecham He's the show creator He wrote this story

I think almost 20 years ago It was actually Yeah He was His script was on The first blacklist script And the blacklist is As you probably know

It's the sort of most desirable scripts That people want to get made Or may or may not be able to get made because of the expanse of the idea, et cetera. So for many years, he was trying to get this show, this made as a movie, and he finally found a home at Amazon, which is where we,

which is why we went off to Prague and spent five months doing the show there. I think he said it was in development hell for two decades. Yeah, I think for him it was a real labor of love, and for all of us actually, but certainly for him to get this sort of his first script, You know, you have to imagine he was, so you've seen some of the show and you know that there's this rot, there's rather elaborate world. And in order for him to kind of get a sense of this world, he drew a mural on the wall of his dorm so that he could place Carnival Row, which is where the crits are, the burg, which is the city that we are in, which is basically like any big European city.

It's like it could be London. and the burghish men represent, you know, the people who live in the burg. And as I said, the fay come in, but the parks all have a different, they're all identified with a different kind of accent and look, of course. And it's really a wonderfully human look into a lot of what we're experiencing in the world today, which was one of the reasons why I was so taken with the script. You know, obviously I've done a little bit of fantasy. So I've had a bit of...

And I really felt when I read this script that I'd never seen it before, I was like, wow, this is really unique and different. And Alfei are not like just sort of fairies down the end of the garden. They're very kind of human and compassionate and empathetic, but also kind of, you know, they're fighting for their lives, for their rights. And at the same time, you kind of look at the Berkishman

and you understand their perspective. And you get... So because we have this rather large fantasy canvas, we're able to look at some of the stories and look at some of the way in which we're living in the world today and analyze that, but through a veil of fantasy and storytelling and really a great crime noir drama, you know, which was to me a very clever way.

to comment a little bit or to reveal a little bit about what's happening in the world today. Yeah, it makes sense that it was a movie first because it is cinematic. I mean, just the scale of the show, the set pieces, the cost, everything about it feels like a movie, and then on it goes for a number of episodes. I imagine you pick and choose pretty carefully the projects you do. I try to, yeah. It takes something pretty special for you to dive in, but for something that's going to take this much of your time as well. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, honestly, this character, I knew that I was going to be doing it for five months. I wasn't sure we got picked up for a second season, and I had to sign on for three seasons. So I knew that I would be involved in this for a big chunk of my life. So what I was really kind of diligent about was seeing, well, who is this character? And is there enough there for me to be able to unpack over the course of potentially two or three years? And I felt really, really good about who Philo was and my relationship with Travis and the showrunners and how we could sort of develop that. What's, what's really interesting is some people have sort of said to me, oh, Philo's kind of, he's almost like a heroic kind of a guy. And I was like, and I was thinking about it.

And I was like, well, if in that he is a man who does the right thing, that's what makes him heroic. You know what I mean? And yes, he's heroic. And in this day and age, oddly, that's kind of what makes a hero today, right? It's like, how do you do the right thing? You know, it's like to do the right thing is what makes you a hero. And I thought, wow, that's, it's sort of, it seems like it's a low bar, but in the while we live in today, it's an incredibly high bar, I think.

You know, it's like just trying to do the right thing, being straightforward. And that's, and Philo is, as a man of secrets, and some of those secrets which are revealed, certainly in the, first season and you know explain a lot of why he has this sort of he also has this empathetic nature he has this ability to to sort of connect and humanize and try to do the right thing by by people who are in need of his help you know and in need of of kind of a hero the kind of guy that does the right thing in this day and age yeah the question of our of our show.

The question of otherness and outsiders is front and center, obviously, as you said in this show in ways subtle and less subtle. And you can't help but hear it from what we see in the news today and what we watch, not just America, but around the world. Is that something that was in the original script or did it come back and sort of get put in this new context of the world we live in? I mean, tragically, no, it was always there. You know, if you think he wrote this 20 years.

I mean refugee migrant situation has something that's been going on it's part of the tapestry of our lives and it's throughout history and The race a lot of the race kind of interracial kind of relations and dynamics that we explore of course we know that's part of the history and it was always part of the show it was just Incredibly timely that it's become that much more Focused in the world we live in today so it relevant you know it's it's so much more relevant I mean you remember remember the child who was washed up on the beach and we had that horrific. And, you know, if you remember the first, in the first episode, there's, you know, some of these Fay folk being washed up on the beach. And I think, you know, it was sort of, I think that as an actor, you feel most blessed

when you get the opportunity for life to mirror the art that you're, or the creative process, whatever you want to call it, the film, the show that you're trying to do when they kind of mirror one another. it feels so rewarding because it's like, you know, it's, it feels current, I guess. And it is. There's no question. And of course it doesn't hurt to have Cara Delavine. She's fantastic. Yeah. As your love interest in the lead, the lead, Faye.

Yes. Did you know her well before this? Because you all seem to have such chemistry on screen. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't. I think we crossed paths, you know, a couple of times. But not, not, we weren't, we weren't hugely familiar. but, you know, I was given this, I was sent the script, and as I said, I was like, wow, I feel like I really haven't seen this before.

And when it was sent to me to look at the role of Philo, they said that Kara had been, you know, her name had been circling for, to play the role of vignette, and she'd met on it a couple of times. And I was like, and immediately, I wasn't massively familiar with the work, but I went and looked and she's done some great things. And I immediately, though, I guess because she has such a large persona in her own, I was like, yeah, that's the girl. That's that she's exactly, you know, she has that sort of feisty kind of go get an attitude and like spirit. You know, that's how she presents in the world, I would say, to her millions of social media followers and so on. And it's also how she seems to live. You know, she's quite authentic and stuff. So it was, I thought it was really good casting for her as well.

And, and, you know, the whole cast, you know, science. Simon McBurney, who I don't know if you're familiar with his work. He's a remarkable stage actor, but, and as a Brit, he's sort of like up there. And, you know, he has a wonderful part. Jared Harris, of course, he was so phenomenal in Chernobyl and everything he does. Madman and everything else. He was, he and Indira, who was also Indira, I'm going to forget how to pronounce her last name, but from the Game of Thrones.

Sure. She's amazing in the show. And we're very fortunate. We've got a good, a solid group of actors. And we've created this incredible backlog in Prague, which is where we shoot. So there's a remarkable set. Isn't it interesting to think, too, if a television network or something had come to you maybe 10 years ago, you may not have entertained that idea as a movie star, but with streaming the way it is?

now and Amazon, it opened up this entire new avenue. It's so interesting. I mean, honestly, I would say there are, I think, a lot of actors in Hollywood today who are really looking to do something like this in some ways. You know, like, I mean, because it is the medium of the moment that allows you to really explore character in a very kind of, you know, you have the time to let things play out.

So you don't, it's not, there isn't just that two-hour moment. We have an eight-hour movie on our hands. And honestly, I think it, you know, I think, you know, TV was sort of like the little brother to big, to movies in some way. And, you know, being on this set, I can honestly say, I was, I've been on some pretty big sets. And this was incredibly impressive. I think, you know, that people would love to walk down Carnival Row and see all the detail. I mean, there was a, you know, Travis mentioned. And I took a photograph of it on set.

There was a barber shop. And on this barber shop, there were like on Carnival Row, which is where all the Fay, the creature, sequestered to. This barbershop is run by a puck or a fawn, so it's a horn. And but very real, right? So, and there was, the original drawings were of men. And obviously now he sort of put these overlaid, painted over, are the horns and the,

The Faye and the critch, the park kind of hairstyles and stuff and these different versions around it. It just, I mean, it's like, and we have this Harrispex who's like this mystical kind of mystic woman and she's, you know, you would go into her, into her. I had a handful of scenes in there and on her, on location in her shop. And there's jars just full of these like otherworldly kind of. of interesting beings that you couldn't fathom, but like that she's been accruing. And just the detail, I mean, that kind of detail is something that I remember from Lord of the Rings

or from when I did Kingdom of Heaven with Ridley where he's some amazing set director. So it's art directors who create those worlds. So that's always a really positive, because as an actor, you want a stage. You know, I mean, last year I did a play in London. and I was in New York doing Romeo a few years ago. So the stage is the most important part for an actor.

And when you have a set like Carnival Row, where you can just, it's just the work is sort of done for you almost. You're just, your imagination is sort of set alight, which is so exciting. It strikes me as I listen to you talk, and I'm thinking about that set, I'm thinking of Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean. You like a big production with a lot of detail and a lot going on. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I would say so.

I would say so. You know, it's interesting because at the beginning of my career, I finished training in London at drama school and I always thought I would do what every other British actor did, which was hoped to get signed by the RSC and do a run of theatre and then perhaps you get into some telly TV and then you might be getting shot at the movies. And of course, for me, I had this remarkable trajectory where, you know, I had trained for three years and I'd been out, I'd had an agent actually because I'd done a little bit of work before, I'd known I wanted to go to theater school because I thought I needed that education and that

discipline. But I was, so I was auditioning for things. And of course, Lord of the Rings was my entrance into the world. So I sort of went off into these big productions and I sort of hit the jugger. Wasn't it a couple days after you left Gilbert that you were there? Yeah. I mean, it was literally, Lord of the Rings. Yeah, it was like, and I, and there I am with like Ian McKellen and Ian Holm and Ian Holm and Christopher Lee and Vigo Mortensen and Elijah Wood. Oh my God. And it's just like, You know, if you imagine as a young actor, you know, you're like, you really learn from observing and seeing how, you know, your fellow actors and people are, you know, doing things. It was like, it was like a master's degree, you know, coming out at drama school to go into Lord of the Rings. It was really a blessing.

Not a lot of time to hone your craft. Just throw you right into the fire. No, and then, you know, to your point, I ended up, you know, in this sort of remark. A remarkable trajectory of like pirates and, you know, big epic like Troy and Kingdom of Heaven and these big epic style movies throughout my 20s into my early 30s. And at the end of that, I was like, wow, I need to go and do some theater. Right. I need to go do some theater. I need to figure out which way is up because it all has gotten quite, you know, quite spinny, as it were.

It's like, you know, it's the air is pretty, it's rarefied air up there. Yeah. It's funny. Listen to you talk. I interviewed a couple months ago. Harrington as the as Game of Thrones came to a close and he said almost exactly the same thing his first job was on Game of Thrones yeah he said what are you going to do now he said I'm to go back to the theater and do the thing I was supposed to do first and and sort of flip it so it

sounds like you had some of that too yeah so I'm interested Orlando on how this acting bug was planted in you and where it started because it sounds like it was from a very a very young age yeah it really was I was I mean I think that's the greatest blessing actually I I'm like we were talking about our children earlier. I'm praying every day that my son finds the thing that he feels most inspired by. And for me, as a young, young kid, school was always a little bit of a challenge.

I struggled a little bit with dyslexia, but when I was on stage and I did every school production that I could sign up for, and I was never given the lead role. I was always given, like, the character roles of like the dirty old man and the boyfriend or the sergeant of police and pirates, the penzance, like these kind of really like character, old-worldy character roles.

So I'm like hamming it up, like, you know, which is a good place to do it. But school, so for me it was, you know, school was the first place. And my mom always encouraged, my mom was always encouraging us. There was a thing called the Canterbury Festival, the Kent Festival in my hometown of Canterbury where you would go and you could learn. you would learn a piece of prose reading, writing, a piece of Bible reading, you'd learn a piece of the Bible and a poem, any one of those.

And I did all three often, and then you'd recite them, and then you'd be judged by some people who are little old ladies who are judging you. And then, you know, and I always did very well, and I'd win the prize, and I'd get the thing that said, came first, and I'd be like, wow, I can do this. And actually, I think that, you know, whilst I joke, I think that at a young age, like learning the Bible, passages of the Bible,

to then perform, or at least to recite, was, you know, was very good for my use of my verbal skills and things and poetry and prose and kind of doing that stuff. So I moved to London when I was 16 because I wanted to pursue my dreams to be an actor. I wanted to finish my education

and I went to a school where I could do both of those things. And I did my A-levels, which is pre-university exams. And I did the National Youth Theatre, which was like a summer course where you could go and do things, and where you go and do a play, a performance. Actually, I did a fellow. I remember Tuotel, Edgift, you know. Of course, yeah.

He was a fellow. Really? And I was a spear carrier. And I was like, and I remember I was on set at the back, and I was like, I was like, desperate. There was like there was a moment where we had to kind of get riled up and the director's Orlando Pipe Down. But actually the director of that show who was the director of the theatre group, I think he must have seen something in me because he sent me to a course which

I did in London called Bada which was the British American Drama Academy where young American drama school students could come and have the English experience of education of theatre training and I did that just before I audition for drama school which was so helpful because it sort of put me into the right headspace for the audition process that I was that I then went into in order to get sort of get into drama school and did three years at drama school and that was that was my you know it was it was a deep it was I think it was a need it was a really deep it was like when when you feel so present in those moments and you can get into a character and that's the one place that you really do.

It was something that just, it was like, I also was, I'd done photography and I'd done sculpture and I was actually kind of, in my exams, at least, I'd gotten better comments for my sculpture and my photography work independently. My theatre work was like, it wasn't so much the acting, the acting part, but the writing part was always kind of a challenge. Right. So, but I just was very, very focused on, on, on what I wanted to do. And, you know, to this day, it's, if anyone says to me, where would you, you know, where would you rather be right now than what you're doing? If I'm not with my son or loved ones, you know, I'm like on set kind of thing, or at least, or on stage or, because I love that.

I, you know, I really do love the process of, you know, exploring character and working with other actors and being a part of that kind of creative process, which is so unique. You know, it's such a gift. It's nice to hear that. Somebody might think he's this huge movie star, he's done everything. It's a job for him, but you still feel the way you felt when you were a boy on those stages. Do you really?

Yeah, I really do, man. I'm like, it gives me goosebumps. I love it. I like, I still, I think, I would say, if I'm honest, that at the end of the Pirates run, at the end of a big, big run of movies that I'd done. I was, there's a line in Tolkien's, Lord of the Rings, that Bilbo says, I felt like a piece of toast that had been spread too thin.

The butter had been, you know, the butter had been spread too thin. And I felt a little like that. And I, so, you know, like, as I said, I did some theater work and I traveled. And I had a family. And, you know, having a child was an amazing, you know, it's incredible what that does to the ego, right? Sure. I mean, when you're not number one in the house anymore, and you realize very quickly that somebody else is going to be up front and center in a very cool way. It's an amazing, it's amazing to have that experience. So it was, but yeah, but it was, it was, so after, you know, but I've never not loved, loved it. And really kind of, I think I would say what's so great about Carnival Row is, we do get to explore whilst we're in this fantasy world the real the humanity of life and i'm

and i'm really into that i mean i've i worked with unisef for 10 years and that's been something that really working with children and and the women and children that i've seen you know in some of the most horrifying circumstances that you can imagine you know i always feel so so so blessed and i'm always i always want to be connected to to people and to humanity you know what And it was a hard part of being sort of the movie star idea, which was not something that was not something that I had expected at a young age. How did you, I can't imagine going from unknown actor fresh out of school to now you're in one of the biggest movies and the history of movies and Lord of the Rings. And now you're in a series and now everybody knows who you are. And people are chasing you with cameras and all the rest of it.

How do you begin to adjust it? that or treat that as somehow a normal life? Yeah, it's an odd one, you know. I don't think there's any, there really isn't a rule book. It really tests your human skills about, about, you know, how to empathize and understand and do the right thing and be somebody who just can get on with their lives. I mean, in my 20s it was really, it was most challenging.

And as obviously I'm a lot older now, I'm 40 now, and I can and sort of, and I can have a lot of perspective over it. And I'm kind of like, and I'm much more kind of gracious and everything. In my 20s, I was just like I wore a hat for three years. And I just like, and I learned to ride a motorcycle so that I could like go about my life without having like cars following. And it was an unusual thing. And nobody really tells you how to handle that stuff.

And people think, oh, that fame is the thing that everyone wants, right? Everyone wants that. And actually what nobody tells you, it's really like getting into a burning car. You know, it's like, it's like, okay. You can get in that car and do what you do. And people go, well, look, that's a guy in a bad car. But you just got to make sure that you've got, like, you've got a support team to get you out of the car.

So that, you know, when you're getting in the car, like, so you're performing and everything, great, you're in the car. But then when you get out of the car, you need the support team and the network of friends or family or whoever you have to be able to just kind of do the small, the intimate and the real. Because, you know, it's the big stuff is what we all kind of aspire to. to, but it's actually the everyday things, you know, like you probably have it when you take your son for an ice cream. It's like, he'll never not remember that, you know what I mean?

That's right. It's the little things that if you lose sight of and lose touch with, that I think you can, you can then start to spiral, you know, and so the daily thing for me is just doing the small, doing the intimate and staying on top of that and making the moments being present in the for my son with my family and things like that. That's an incredibly vivid metaphor of the burning car. Yeah. Because by the way, not everybody gets out of the burning car. Right.

A lot of very sad stories. Yeah. Where they go, oh, they just burn off until they burn off. Right. And I, you know, like I said, I like my life. I like what I do and I want to be doing it. And I think, you know, there's something very exciting about. seeing people come undone.

Part of our culture is slightly obsessed with seeing people come slightly undone in one form or another. You know what I mean? There's something that's, I think, with the event of social media, we, you know, I think every great sage and worthy from time immemorial has said, do not compare yourself to your neighbor's wealth, right? And yet these social media platforms are set up to do exactly that. So the mental health aspect of all of that is something that's quite scary. But I would say, yeah, for me, it's like keeping it real and knowing that, yeah, you've got to play the game sometimes.

You're going to get in the burning car. But when the lights and cameras go off, you've got to go back to doing all the things that you do that keep you grounded in a real world and in the moments. that you share with the people that you love and people that you meet and things like that. And as you say, children, do keep you humble. They keep you the same. Even when they're eight years old, they'll keep you humble. They'll keep you real, right? Has he gotten to the point where he can watch any of your movies?

Will he see a Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean? And what does he think about dad? Well, he's, I actually, he probably saw them a little too young, but I was always nervous that he would be at a friend's house and it would be on in the background. And he'd be like, wait a second. You know what I mean? Wait, is that my dad? You know what I mean?

And I thought, oh, that would kill me. So I would be like, so I actually set it up for him probably a couple of years ago now where he watched Pirates for the first time. And I didn't let him watch the whole thing, but just like my entrance, which was pretty cute. And with the sword and the little thing. And I videoed it. And he was like, wait. So he's figured out all of that stuff.

And I think in this day and age, you know, like, yeah, he's watched a lot of, he's watched, he's watched, he's watched, like he's watched pirates and and Lord of the Rings and fragments of them, but enough to kind of get to know what it is and stuff. So does he think you're cool or dad's still not cool? He's not that, I'm not that cool. No, I'm not that cool. I'm still not. I don't think, and I've given up that game as well. Right. I'm not going to try and be cool dad. I'm just trying to be dad, dad, dad. You know what I mean? No, that's futile. That's a futile exercise. Yeah. As you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's me actually, before. I had his son thinking, oh, I'm going to be the coolest dad in the world.

Absolutely, no. So, you know. If you can't be a cool dad, there's no hope for any dad trying to be a cool dad. I think that settles it. Yeah, well, I don't know. I think, again, it comes back to just spending that time, doesn't it, kicking the ball around and doing the things that they need? That's it. You mentioned your theater work coming back here to New York to do Romeo and Juliet.

I'm hoping to come back next year, actually. I was going to ask you, are you going to be back? We'd love to, yeah, we've got. There's something I won't mention at the moment, but there is something that, yeah, we're trying to put together a show for next year would be great. What's that balance like for you? Big blockbuster movie or Amazon show. Is it nice to get back to the smaller stage? The amazing thing about standing on stage is the immediacy of the reaction from an audience.

So it almost doesn't matter what anyone says in a review or anything like that. that, although thank you, I've had some nice ones and I'm grateful. Don't get me wrong. But for my theatre work, which is interesting because, you know, it's like, I got some love in the theatre, which is amazing. The immediacy of having an audience respond, you get exactly what you need to do. You know, you work obviously in rehearsal for four to six weeks, depending on what you're doing, four or five weeks. And then four or five. I'd say and then you know the director really leaves you I mean they've set the show right kind of you've you've blocked it you worked it you've set the show and then

it's really yours it's yours to play with it's yours to find and find again and find again every night for eight shows a week and and and I I guess being a Capricorn I like routine and I like that so I love that that process of just showing up and doing something over and over again. When I have a routine, I'm like, I'm like the best, you know. And so, and I love finding it again. I love seeing it and seeing what I could do with it. And I'll never forget, you know, the Richard Rogers,

which is where we were doing, Romeo. You know, Romeo was such a, I was sort of, I'm probably not the youngest actor, certainly not the youngest actor, but I wasn't the oldest actor necessarily either. I was in my late 30s. But I don't think I could have done it before that, actually. I mean, that really? In a way, like, I think, I think love and intimacy and some of the things that are spoken

about in there, they just, it was like, maybe I could have done it in my 20s, maybe, maybe, but like I needed to wait and go through some things, but it's sort of like that language that you hear on, the Shakespeare, you know, which has been spoken for hundreds of years, you know, and it's sort of like I always felt like I'd be on stage in this giant house. Because the Richard Rogers is a pretty big theater. And I'd be looking out and saying these remarkable words, and I felt almost like I was communing with the planets, communing with the universe, with God or something.

You know, with the history of the play and everything. It really, like, you can, you know, when you hear the stories of like Daniel Day Lewis having like a meltdown playing Hamlet and then not being able to do it because of the ghost of his father, there was that sort of famous. I can sort of understand, why? Because, you know, certainly with something like Shakespeare, you're kind of held by that language and you're moved, you're carried along and stuff. It's really an intense thing. But again, I was in London for Killer Joe. And, you know, that's a Tracy Let's play who's just the most remarkable writer and an actor and everything, right? I mean, do you know, for you know, for you in a little, yeah, nothing he can't do in a way. But getting to do that in this very intimate space. The stage was probably like half the size of this room that were, the bar that we're in.

It was tiny. It was like the size of just the end of there. And the audience was right on the stage and it's an incredibly potent and violent and thought-provoking play that was that we did at a rather challenging time as well. But it was like, it was amazing. We'd have, like, you know, it's this really challenging piece of writing that we'd have a standard. that we'd have a standing ovation every night, and I'd be like, wow, this is like, this is kind of why you do it.

So as an actor, you get to perform on theatre, you just really get to be, really feel your audience. You know, and it's, and so it's a sort of a gift for you, really, because it's not, you're certainly not doing it for the money, but you're doing it to hone the, home the, home the right toolbox, you know, get in there and polish up the knives and get ready to go, you know, and put that, you know, that feeling before you go onto a first night. just you're sweating bullets.

Wait, am I going to retain everything? Is it all in my mind? Is it all there? Will I remember? Interestingly, Romeo was almost easier because the language, like I said, carries you along, this iambic pentameter, the verse.

And in Tracy Letts, there was this very kind of, like, beautiful writing, but very specific and, like, batting, batting back and forth. And that, you know, holding, like, often that,

You know, a monologue can be sometimes a one-man show or whatever because you map it in your mind. So it's almost more manageable. But when you have to back and forth and there's four people and it's like, it's, that's really. You can't relax. You're like, you know what I mean? There's no, there's no doubt. You know, so it's, yeah, it's a gift. That's the, you know, I love to, I love to do it. And as I said, I'm hoping next year we'll be back here to talk to you about what we're doing next year.

I was going to say, great. You'll have to whisper it to me. and we'll get the interview set up. Well, I think from the outside of people look at theater, they might say, oh, it's eight nights a week. It could be monotonous in some way. But every actor I talk to says, no, that's the beauty of it, which is that it's a different audience every night.

They react to different moments. Interestingly, do other actors tell you this? Because there's a Tuesday night audience, there's a Wednesday night audience, there's a Thursday night, there's a Thursday. And they all really play the same note. It's very odd. Like you always know on a Tuesday night

you're going to get what you're going to get. You kind of go, oh, well, we've got to give it. You sort of almost tailor the performance to the night that you're doing, you know. And they're always that? Interestingly, yeah. Interestingly, like I was like, I was a not, I just didn't believe that.

When I first came to Broadway to do the Romeo, I was like, all these very talented and actors who've been doing theater for years were like, you know, yeah, oh, it's going to be Tuesday night. And I'm like, no, we're going to blow that Tuesday night thing out of the water. We're doing it. And I was like, oh, no, they were right.

It's a Tuesday night audience. That's what it is. I mean, we still had great reviews, but it was great responses, rather. But it was, like, wow, there was a lot. I have heard that, especially the matinee audience, which is an entirely different animal than the next year. Yeah, yeah. Although sometimes they even listen more than matinee.

It's interesting. Oh, is that right? It's like, well, yeah, I mean, it's. They've had less to drink, for starters, yeah, yeah, yeah. And went out to dinner. first. There's a lot going on there. Yeah, yeah. So Carnival was picked up already for season two. It was. Which is a nice thing before you've even released season one. Yeah, it is. So do you have an

idea where this story is headed? Yeah, I mean, I've had, I've now, I've been given the first three or four of the next season. They're still, you know, getting things together, but we're, we're going to be there soon. So yes, I do. Is that exciting to get those scripts and see? It is. And, and And obviously it's, it's, you'll see from the show that whilst, whilst Philo kind of is the sort of through line and kind of goes, weaves through many stories, there are, there are three or four, there are about three or four real strong storylines. And then, and then five even. And then, so, so in a way, they're going to build out the rest of this world. You know, you can see how, where they can go with it once you see the first season, that, you know, we can start to explore the different lands and things and potentially,

but there's, and, and the different worlds for the characters. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of room for growth. The great thing is that, that because it was, and it is an original idea, and, you know, it came from Travis's mind, there's, there's really, it's really, it's really limited by his imagination and he seems to have a very vivid one. So hopefully, knock on word, we'll be, you know, that to me is exciting because, you know, I think there's room for growth and we'll go, and I, and as I think the thing that I, I think I'm most proud of about what we, I think the first season of any show, which is like,

this is my first time doing it, setting the first season. season of any show, it's always like, it's like, it's like finding, you know, it's like finding its feet. It's like it's, but I think as, I think the second season is they, from what I've read already, I'm like, okay, they're, they're on it now. They're like, they've taken note from what the first season's experience was and they're, they're, they're running with it. So it's exciting. And, you know, I think the first season is awesome. So, you know, and, um, and I'm, and I'm, really excited. But there's always room to grow, right? You always want to elevate and you always want to continue.

Well, people are going to love it because if you're Lord of the Rings type and you love that sort of fairy world and the supernatural, that's great. But it's also, as I said, before, it's grounded in a human detective murder story. So it's sort of the best of both of those worlds pushed together. And you can put that in the promo for Amazon. There you go. Yeah, we'll take that. Thank you very much. Exactly. Say that right to camera.

They'll cut it right now. You mentioned a minute ago how happy you are right now, your son and your family. Yeah. You're engaged. I am. Thank you very much. You made a lot of us who have gotten engaged look bad by the story Katie tells of picking her up in a helicopter, taking her to the roof of a building, what her family was waiting. Well, part of that was just to be able to do it without anyone around. You know what I mean?

It was like, where are you going to get to do this privately? Oh, that's a good idea. And over a city. Scoop her up in a helicopter, huh? You know, it was like, to be honest, she loves a theme, as you see in everything that she does. And she loves a big moment. I'm still trying to get her to wrestle into the small moments. I think that's what my job is in this relationship is to bring her into the small moments.

Well, you set the bar a little high with the helicopter delivery at the beginning of the marriage. I wanted to tell her where I could go. I was like, look, I can do the big moments, but I think we've still got to focus on the small, which is a lot of what we're doing. But yeah, it's, yeah, it was a, it was a big, I can be a bit of a romantic. I mean, I like to think so. I don't think I always get credit for it from her sometimes.

Listen, that's impressive. I'm a little, but like, it's a big gesture every now and again. But yeah, it was, it was a fun. It was just like, in my mind, I was like, well, how do I do this without there being a lens or somebody or anyone around? And it's like, well, we're going to go to dinner and it would be cool. And then I want to get her friends around. and oh, we could pop on a thing and do it there.

And it was like, so... You pulled it off. Kind of a James Bond landed on the roof of the building. Thanks, I'll take it. I'll take that. Was it what? Yeah, exactly. No, it was cool.

It was a nice, it was a... It was a very real moment, actually, for us. Yeah. Because it was, I think we're both... The one thing about us and, you know, is that we're very real with each other in terms of knowing that, like, it's a mountain to climb.

You know what I mean? I think there's an idea in Hollywood. that love, because of the way Hollywood has sold love and love stories and everything, that that helicopter thing is the thing of, well, they were in a helicopter. And that's, but actually, I think, you know, the cool thing about what we're doing and, you know, is we're learning to do the small together. We're learning to do the intimate. And that's something that I think whether you are somebody who is in the public eye or isn't,

it's something that you always have to keep your eye on, intimacy, right? and closeness and showing up and giving the ice cream run with your kid, taking them to school, doing it, having a dinner, just keeping things, you know what I mean, real and grounded? And when you have such big lives, it's like you think, oh, that must be so fun and exciting and everything. And you go, yeah, but, you know, it's all about keeping it real and coming back to the simple. And so we're doing a lot of, a lot of our own growing in that respect. We're not like glamorizing the idea of this. I think we're both fully aware

that it's a mountain to climb and that that mountain won't stop in terms of a relationship because I think that's what it is. And I love to evolve and fortunately she does too. So it's like we're both and there were respites and there were like high fives along the way because you kind of break through things but it isn't

like it's not like oh we're just you know whatever it may appear, you know what I mean? It's like when you see photos of things it's like it can seem one thing. But like I mean, how long are you... 15 years, you just tested me. 15 years.

We'll edit that out in post. We'll put the right answer in post. I always ask. It's that. It's the little things. Having a sense of humor about each other. Trying to keep it. It's, as you say, it's not the big stuff up here.

It's the stuff you do every day when nobody's watching. And when everybody else is watching you, there's this idea that there's something. But actually, we all meet in the dirt, right? Isn't it? It was, I think it was in the gutter. It's Oscar Wilde said, you know, we're all laying in the gutter. guts as looking at the stars, you know, that's really, and that's, there's a lot of truth in that, you know, um, because it doesn't, you know, creatives, people, you're, well, I love listening

the way you both have talked about it in other interviews where you've said, you know, people ask, what's the wedding planning like as if you're picking out the napkins and the silverware, but what you've both said is, uh, we're just figuring out how to do this. Exactly. Right. The planning is, the wedding is like, the wedding, right? It's like, that takes care of itself. You pay somebody, they do it. Right. Whatever. If you're lucky enough to be, to do that, that'll be fine. Right. No, this is like, wait, are we, are we aligned here? Are we aligned and going there? Because that's what we care about. And we are. And that's, but that's the work, right? And I think, you know, I've, I'm on my prayer mat for it. And, you know, it's important to me that

we are aligned and that, you know, because I think, you know, I, I've been married and divorced and I've had a child once and I don't want to do it again. I want to make sure that like I'm, you know what I mean? And we're both fully aware of that. And she's remarkable. So, you know, I'm like, I'm always like, wow, you know, she's, she's so, she has a remarkable heart. I'd say she's just like, she has such a big heart, you know. So I'm always so impressed with that.

And I mean, I'm encouraged because I'm, I can, I can be quite a graft that, you know, I live in, I live quite comfortably in the hurt locker, as I say sometimes. Like, I'm like, if there's a mountain, I'm going to climb it. I'm going to ride up it on my mountain bike. My lungs are going to bleed. Or I'm going to go on stage for each. I'm going to, you know what I mean? It's like I'm always challenging myself.

And yeah, so it's a good. We complement each other in many ways. And sometimes we do. And we go, well, let's keep trying. That's right. I guess that's what it is, right? You just get down, get up, get down, get up. And, you know, get those inner childs out, have them play in the sandbox.

go, yeah, can you play like this? Okay, all right, on we go. Or let's play a little differently. Yeah, exactly. Before we move on. Yeah, exactly. Let's figure out how to share those things or how to do that thing or whatever it is.

It's a whole plethora of stuff. But I love it. You know, I love, like I said, I love relations. I love humanity. I love the idea of how people relate and interrelate. So, yeah, we're on a journey. Just like Carnival Road. There you go.

Bring it all back. Yeah. Right there. Stick around to hear more from Orlando Bloom on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, including how a childhood learning disability influenced and inspired his acting career. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast, now for more of my conversation with Orlando Bloom. You were talking a moment ago about dyslexia and the role it played in your life, and maybe that was an avenue into acting for you.

Yeah, in a way, I was fortunate in the sense that I was, I kind of was diagnosed, as it were, with dyslexia as a learning difficulty. It was, for me, it was reading, sort of flipping letters sometimes and struggling to focus on stuff. And then, so at a young age, I learned to write cursive, so, you know, joined up, as it were. I did a lot of work. I worked.

I had a lot of extra classes and things like that. And I think that gave me a little bit of fight, you know. And when I was, and I really was blessed when I got to drama school because I had a teacher in drama school who said, you know, Orlando is a gift. And he was dyslexic too. And he said, there is a book and it's called The Gift Dislexic, because it's really a gift. And it wasn't until I got to drama school that I started to appreciate how my mind worked and how I thought and how I approached character and how I wasn't linear and how sometimes that worked and sometimes it did. didn't, but if I was present and in the moment, it was really exciting and explosive. And it enabled me to think outside of the box.

And, you know, I think for young people today, you know, if there is that kind of a learning disability there, it's something to be encouraged, you know. And at my age, it really wasn't. Like I left one school because they didn't know how to do with it. They were like thicky bloom or whatever. I got a lot of slack until, you know, I found the right place. and, you know, and like I said, I think that, you know, these things in our lives, like for me, that learning disability at a young age, and I also had, like, some pretty interesting accidents

that taught me stuff. But I think all of the things that are really major challenges for us in our lives, those are like, if your life is a canvas, those are like the rich, deep reds, you know, and not everybody's going to have that rich, deep red or purple. You know, they're going to have a nice pale yellow, blue, green thing. And so, like, you kind of, you know, it's your badge of honor and you wear it and you kind of, you live with it and you do it. And you just, and for me, it was, I felt most present and most focused on stage. And I would diligently learn my lines and show up, you know, off book so that I was ready

to work and ready to create and not, and probably not in fear of like dropping a ball in some way, because maybe there was some of that created at an early age. So it's, it's, it's, it was definitely a gift, and it was definitely something that inspired me to go and do it and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, acting was the thing that I felt most, most comfortable with. Seems to have served you pretty well. Well, you've done okay for yourself.

Touch wood. Thanks. Well, keep going. Thanks, man. Cheers, man. Thank you. My big thanks to Orlando for taking that time. and being so generous in our conversation,

you can catch his new show, Carnival Row, starting August 30th on Amazon Prime. Sylvie, I have to say there are celebrities who don't want to talk about their personal lives, and I always respect that, and I understand that. But he has talked a little bit, and Katie Perry has talked a little bit about their engagement, at least. I was pleasantly surprised at his openness

and his willingness on his own to talk about where they are in their relationship and what they're doing to make him. it work. It was really interesting. I mean, he he seemed to want to let you know sort of how hard it is. You know, it's a mountain you have to climb, but that they really work on that actively all the time. And that the idea that it's Hollywood and everything as a fairy tale really isn't the case and that he's aware of that and he works hard on it. And that was a kind of interesting perspective to get from somebody in such a personal way. You think they live on some other

planet? Exactly. Especially when they're both so high profile. Right. But it was, yeah, so interesting to hear him talk about that. He was so open. I was so surprised. But he said the stuff you guys see, that's not the real stuff. That's the dress up stuff. Even the paparazzi stuff where we're jumping off a yacht and a baza or whatever. That's not real either. It's taking your kids for ice cream and all that. I loved it. And he doesn't want to make the mistakes as he said that perhaps he made in his first marriage. He said, I don't want that to happen again. So I don't know. I was really impressed. I did like hearing about his perspective on the proposal. Yeah. That, you know, he can sometimes be romantic and he's not, he doesn't always get credit for it, but he really had made this

big effort. Yeah. And he seemed kind of proud. As I said to him, though, he did set the bar very high. Yeah. When you start the relationship with a helicopter ride at the top of the building, I'm not quite sure where you go from that. These guys work cut out for him.

Sylvie, thank you very much, Maggie. Thank you. Thank you. And again, my thanks, big thanks to Orlando Bloom. And to all of you for tuning in this week, if you want to hear more of the full-length conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.