2 of 2

"He doesn't even get angry when Balian says, 'I'm not in denial of God, I'm in huge question of the possibility that there may not be this voice that is God.' And he's saying, 'Well, that's okay.' He's trying to ease him in the right direction. And he's saying, really, if you just start with being a good man every day or not, that's a pretty good start."

Bloom on 'godliness'

Leading man Bloom echoes these sentiments when it is his turn to meet the press. He says two of the key themes of the film are the need to accept personal responsibility for one's own soul, and the virtue of doing what is right, no matter what the cost; at one point, his character refuses to be complicit in the murder of a fanatical knight even though he knows it might buy peace for a time.

"It is about what you do each day for your fellow man," says Bloom. "That is as close to godliness, being thoughtful to your fellow man.

Orlando Bloom and Ridley Scotton the set

"The way I see it, we are living on this world which we share, and there has always been jostling for power, and war—whether it's over money, power, land, religion, oil, water—and we should be able to live in harmony. Surely that's what any God, whoever your God may be, would tell you. If it isn't about humanity, then I'm not sure what it's about."

Bloom, who played the elf Legolas in The Lord of the Rings films and had a small role in Black Hawk Down, says he leapt at the chance to play Balian because he liked the idea of playing a "reluctant hero." The part also allowed him to take centre stage and "become a man," after playing second banana in Pirates of the Caribbean and to the Greek heroes of Troy.

"I actually read this script when I was on the plane coming back from shooting Troy, and I had no intention of doing another, like, sword-epic style movie," he says. "But I read this script and I thought, 'Wow, this is a great opportunity for me to do something the polar opposite to the cowardly younger brother that Paris was [in Troy].'"

He also says that, as one who finished drama school just a few years ago and has been blessed with plum roles ever since, he agrees wholeheartedly with the film's message that making someone a knight can, in and of itself, make someone a better fighter.

"If somebody had said to me that I'd be working with Ridley Scott when I was 27, and that I'd have been the lead in his sword-epic movie that he'd been wanting to make for ages, I'd be like, 'You're kidding, aren't you? That's not me, really?'" Bloom says. "But I think people can do remarkable things when responsibility is placed on them, and when they have faith and belief that they can do it, and somebody else has faith or belief in them. And I think that is how you see Balian defending so courageously the walls of Jerusalem at that point."

As for the film's reception in other parts of the world—particularly in Muslim countries—Bloom says he went into the project confident that Scott would bring "sensitivity" and "balance" to the story.

And while there are troublemakers here and there in the story, especially among the Knights Templar, Balian has no particular nemesis or archenemy, the way the protagonist in, say, Gladiator did. "So it's not a conventional movie in that sense," says Bloom. "But that's why I think it's a courageous movie and that's why I think it's an important movie."

For more on the film, here's the official website.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  2 of 2

Related Elsewhere:

Kingdom of Heaven	Printer view

---

'This Is Not a Documentary'	Printer view
So says one of three scholars of Kingdom of Heaven, an epic film about the Crusades opening this week