And finally Orlando Bloom has gone straight to Olympus. Hollywood is always looking for young actors for teenagers' roles (no one wants to watch another actor in his thirties, and almost needing a hair transplant playing another teenagers' movie!).

When Orlando was a teenager, he was in the right place at the right time. "Wilde"'s producers were looking for someone just like him in London for a small role as a rentboy. He was supposed to light Oscar's fire, and he was fit for this.

As his surname suggests, Orlando is young, fresh and perfect. He's 27 but he looks younger; he's athletic, versatile, talented. He continues the tradition of young actors (Henry Fonda and James Stewart, and more recently by Matthew Broderick and John Cusack) playing the smart good-looking guy that contents of a small part. But Orlando won't continue to be a minor character. In "Pirates of the Caribbean" Johnny Depp tries to seduce Keira Knightley, but she is in love with Orlando. It's the victory of the ordinary guy over a global sex symbol.

In "Troy" he's Paris, the prince that causes the most known war of all times, taking Helen away from her husband, king Menelaus. At the moment he's shooting "Kingdom of Heaven", a story that takes place at the times of the Crusades.

Orlando has starred in about 10 movies in his carrier, and in almost all of them he has played a hero. Apparently it comes natural to him. Just look at his face: it's a mixture of teenager look and gravity. And that's what women like about him. He's a projection of the first love, his look tells you "I'll die for you", this is Romeo's characteristic.

He has the credibility of a man that keeps the promises, who believes in impossible dreams; you can tell it from his eyes. That's what makes him a perfect Paris: he's the kind of man that could be the cause of the fall of an empire. If this character was simply acted, Paris would look like a silly good-looking guy. Orlando on the contrary uses his inner complexity to make it more credible. Even when Paris runs away from the battlefield and from Menelaus, Orlando, instead of making us hate him for his lack of courage, manages to get our forgiveness (or at least that of girls...). Neither Achilles can hate him, even while dying by his hand.

While Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp have always avoided minor roles, Orlando didn't. Being Legolas in "The Lord of the Rings" let him be known worldwide as the first sexy elf in history. After that we had the chance to watch on a pirate ship in "Pirates of the Caribbean", and now Ridley Scott has chosen him for a more epic movie than the Gladiator.

Orlando's destiny is to become one of the greatest actors of the next years, to turn from a passionate young boy to an adult hero. Getting, hopefully, some sense of humour.

Orlando, my dear friend, Vanity Fair (Italy), May 2004
scans by WhiteFairy of Orland Bloom Forever, translation by Valeria

My first contact with Orlando was crazy! I flung my arms round his neck and I kissed him. I didn't even know his name when the Guildhall called us to tell us the result of the entrance examination.

After days of rehearsals, improvisations, singing, dancing, we were 100 people left of 1000 that had started.

On that Sunday they called us, we were divided into 3 groups (those who were in, those out, and those who were stand-by, waiting to be someone's substitute). While everyone was in panic, I noticed a guy next to me, and I told myself : "how cute!!", and that was Orlando. He started playing the fool saying: "Hey guys, maybe there's a hidden camera, we're still under examination!".

Then the teachers entered the room saying that we were in, and I kissed Orlando on his face.

At that time I didn't know I was sharing that moment of joy with someone that was about to become one of my best friends.

We used to call each other 'me Maya, me Orlando' (i.e. 'my' in cockney). He's very sweet with friends.

The first time I went to his house he screamed: "Gibbo, Giiiibbo!", and I heard from the other room "Gibbo!"; it was his friend Chris, who Orlando was living with at that time.

We actually became friends some time later. Orlando is from London, so he had his friends there, and that's why he didn't spend much time with the group.

During the second year we all started going out together. Some words in a pub, and we became good friends. We were always together. That year I lived in Stamford Hill in a house with people who were very rude, and I was very far from school, so sometimes I went sleeping to Orlando's in Soho.

He didn't drink or smoke, neither did I, we both liked relaxing in the swimming pool after the lessons, or walking in parks.

Orlando seems absent-minded, but on the contrary he's a great listener. He' a special person. He's very generous, loyal, he has a great capability of loving.

I understood he is a great person when I met his friends. If you want to know someone you have to know his friends. Our school companions didn't see these characteristics. His only friends at the academy were Matthew Brown (who quit after one year), and me.

When I got back to Italy to shoot Marco Bellocchio's "The Nurse", I'd been away for 3 months, and I think Orlando suffered a lot about that. Especially for the accident. It's been a nightmare. At that time, I was very happy because I was the only girl who was asked to study a scene from Hamlet. On a Sunday, Orlando asked me to go out, but I had to study, so I refused. He decided to go to some friends' house for lunch.

Some how, they got stuck out of the house, and, to get into it from a window, Orlando climbed a rain-pipe and fell in an abandoned garden. The next morning teachers were particularly kind to me, a couple of friends came to me like to support me. I noticed Orlando wasn't there. A teacher told me "Yes Maya, It's about Orlando. It's life".

I thought I was about to die. Orlando couldn't have walked again. I immediately ran to the hospital, even if one of my teachers tried to convince me not to. He said to me that the evening his best friend had died, he was on stage. I answered, crying, that I wasn't like him, that that day I didn't care about my job.

Orlando has changed a lot after this experience. Something like this makes you understand your limits.

When I saw him in that hospital bed, he looked terrorized. He was under morphine, and couldn't move.

After 10 days I got back to the hospital, and I saw Chris sitting on Orlando's bed, reading comics. "Where's Orlando?" "In the toilet", he answered, smiling. After a while Orlando came in, walking.

That day I realized that he couldn't be stopped.

Orlando had had job offers even before starting at Guildhall. He was the only one having an agent.

During those 3 years at the academy, he always refused any role that he was offered. On the third year, all the school companions were desperately looking for an agent, and Orlando got 7 letters after a show in which he only had 7 lines.

Everyone was envious, but he had something more, and people noticed it. After I starred in "The Nurse", Orlando too was offered a part in Italy. But he never did it.

The last day of school he was told he was a cast member of The Lord of the Rings. 3 movies in a year and a half in New Zealand. I went to see him; I spent a month there. We traveled a lot. He also made me do some extreme sports that he loves.

We bungee jumped once. I was scared, but I jumped, and I must admit it's been one of the greatest experience of my life. He jumped backwards with a camera. I think it's on the movie's dvd.

Orlando's not only brave, but he's also a creative person, he likes sculpting and taking photographs. On the LotR's set he kept a kind of diary made of polaroids and thoughts. He's a poetic person, he's a dreamer, and he likes people and art.

When we watched Romeo+Juliet, he stated "We should have made it!", and we really could, for the love we share for Shakespeare, and for friendship. We would like to work together, it would be a good excuse to spend some time together, like in the past. At the moment we are working on different movies, even if we have the same tastes. Maybe we'll manage to do it in the future. For now, we live our friendship on the phone. But he always complains that I rarely call, and it's true, but just because it's difficult to find him! He called me from the Caribbean, from Morocco.

Success hasn't changed him, he always has the same friends. When I see his pictures on magazines, I see his t-shirts, his pendants, and I can see the guy I met in London a few years ago, when we both hoped to become actors.