Picture: WireImage
Picture: Stephanie@OLove
Picture: Wireimage
Picture: WireImage
From The Independant...
So inspirational is the life story of Rory Stewart, an Eton-educated former diplomat, that he is to become the subject of a Hollywood biopic starring the English-born actor Orlando Bloom.
Stewart has earned an international reputation at the relatively tender age of 35 for his work in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. He has taught Princes William and Harry, run a charity in Kabul, written three books and received an OBE.
Read more of this story in the above link. More articles also at Click! Orlando!
Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom said on Tuesday he was stepping aside from the big productions that made him a star to work in a film about life in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo during the 1992-95 siege.The film is based on the book Fools Rush In by American writer and filmmaker Bill Carter who lived in Sarajevo at the height of the siege. It will be directed by Brazilian director Andrucha Waddington and produced by Elliot Lewitt.
"A film is a very specific and personal account of Bill Carter's experience in Sarajevo during the war and we would very much like to make the film here," the star of the Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings told reporters in Sarajevo.
"This is a departure from the very big Hollywood productions," Bloom said after the film's crew met with the Sarajevo Mayor, who promised financial and other support for the film.
"I'm not in fact playing Bill in this movie but I read the script and the very human story at the very core of this film spoke to me very clearly," he added.
In the book, Carter described his life as an aid worker in besieged Sarajevo in 1993-94 and difficulties and joys he shared with local people trying to preserve the sanity during the 43-month-long shelling of the city by the Bosnian Serb forces.
Bloom declined to provide more details about the film but said he hoped the shooting would start at the end of the year.
"Hopefully, we can get this movie to be made at the end of this year. To come here and shoot would be just wonderful," he said.
Carter made documentary Miss Sarajevo, produced by U2's singer Bono and late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, after he managed to make the first satellite link between Sarajevo and U2's Zooropa tour in 1993.
'When tragedy strikes Bill Carter's life he finds himself drawn to an unlikely place -- Bosnia, in the midst of its civil war. Searching for meaning in the heart of darkness, he manages to find lodging in an abandoned tower block and sets out getting supplies to the starved, besieged citizens of Sarajevo. It is there that Carter emerges from his stupor. Inspired by a community of people working to bring relief to the city, he daringly enlists the help of music group U2 and its lead singer, Bono, who set up satellite links on the band's Zooropa tour that allowed ordinary citizens of Sarajevo to speak unedited and live on 90-foot television screens to thousands of concertgoers worldwide.'To date no official announcement has been made, we will keep our eyes open and report any news as we get it.
ORLANDO Bloom, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, strides through the foyer of an Edinburgh church with all the swaggering style of his Pirates of the Caribbean film role.
But a quartet of elderly ladies enjoying tea and scones in the cafe at St George's Church West hardly give him a second glance – it's Edinburgh, it's the Fringe, and they are unaware they are in company of a celebrity.
Bloom, 31, is in town to deliver an acting masterclass to his elder sister Samantha, 32, who is making her Fringe debut.
As Bloom mounts the stage to help Samantha transform herself into the male mindset of Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in his tale of unrequited love, there is a brief, respectful silence.
Bloom stops Samantha as she acts out a scene where Mayakovsky pricks his finger.
"Don't do it like that, don't suck your finger like that, that's what a woman does. Do it like this" and acts out a quick gnawing mannerism with his finger held at the side of his mouth and in that moment the star quality beams out.
Earlier, Bloom talking about his sister's appearance in A Cloud in Trousers, at the city's Underbelly venue, said: "I've been very fortunate but my sister's had to work very hard to carve out a career.
"It's been quite an undertaking for her and to begin with I marvelled at how it seemed almost like a stream of consciousness.
"Appearing on stage in a theatre rather than a Hollywood film is like using a different sort of muscle for an actor..."
Suddenly the hall is plunged into darkness as lights are tested. Then power is restored.
Bloom, without missing a beat, smiles and continues: "At first I thought Samantha was joking about being on stage alone for 40 minutes I don't know if I could do it, it's a different sort of journey."
Taking a break from the masterclass Samantha said she had no qualms accepting advice from her brother: "He encourages and supports me in everything I do and I like to ask his opinion.
I'd been interested in playing a male role, but rather than playing a tough guy what I discovered was the fragility of men's emotions and the basic instincts we share."
As Orlando Bloom leaves the venue to fly to Sarajevo for filming commitments, a member of the Zawose Family, a group of musicians from Tanzania, appearing at the church venue enquires via co-ordinator and translator Robert Ngoroma, "Who is that guy?"
Told he is a big Hollywood star and quite a heart throb, he responds: "Like Mr Bean?"
It's Edinburgh, it's the Fringe, egos are left at the door.
Photo: Wireimage
Photo Credit: gabemcmillan34
Picture with thanks to Jackie@Ka-Bloom
Picture: Wireimage
Photo: Queensland Newspapers
Picture Credit: TheBadandUgly.com
Orlando Bloom is doing full on martial arts training for a Hong Kong kung-fu movie.
It means Bloom has had to drop out of the small role he was going to take in An Education, which has just started production, with Carey Mulligan playing a teenager in Sixties London who comes under the spell of a charismatic - and totally unsuitable - older man played by Peter Sarsgaard, who introduces the girl to a high-living lifestyle.
Bloom was to have played a friend of Sarsgaard's character. Instead, the fastrising Dominic Cooper will play Bloom's role.
Mr Cooper will be seen this year in the screen version of the hit musical Mamma Mia! (still in the West End), and opposite Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes and Hayley Atwell in The Duchess.
Meanwhile, Bloom is limbering up and getting fit to be in Johnny To's movie The Red Circle, which will film in Hong Kong.
By the way, An Education is based on a memoir Lynn Barber wrote for Granta - it was adapted for the movies by Nick Hornby.
THE historic Café de Paris is to be completely dismantled and rebuilt for a big-budget British movie, An Education – and the whole process will be captured on film by actor Orlando Bloom.
Club regular Orlando stars in the flick, the story of a 17-year-old suburbanite caught up in the glamorous world of Sixties London, which also features Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson and Olivia Williams.
“It will cost a five-figure sum to take down all the venue décor and furnishings and turn the Café into the swinging Sixties,” reports our girl at the bar.
“The Café was also transformed for the Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller film, The Edge Of Love, but this will be far more dramatic – Orlando will be recording the whole transformation on his own camcorder.
“The film’s producers have quite a task on their hands – the Café’s owners want it all back to normal for their usual footballers and young pop stars by the weekend so everything will have to be put back in a frenzy.”
‘An Education’, the script I have been working on for a while now, adapted from Lynn Barber’s autobiographical essay, is finally set to become an actual film. We are fully funded, and shooting starts in a couple of weeks, with Lone Scherfig directing. And we have a really amazing cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Orlando Bloom, Emma Thompson…This, I think, is as good as it could possibly be, and gives the film an excellent shot at being something that people might want to see. And after all the frustrations of the last year or so, the apparently never-ending work on the script feels worthwhile.
