Troy star Orlando Bloom candidly reflects on his experience filming the 2004 film. Directed by Wolfgang Peterson, Troy chronicles the infamous sacking of the titular city by the Greeks in 1250 BCE. The film, which stars Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Eric Bana, and Sean Bean, features Bloom in the role of Paris, the Prince of Troy and younger brother to Bana’s Hector.

In a recent interview for Variety‘s “Know Their Lines” video series, Bloom struggles to identify one of his character’s lines from Troy, ultimately revealing that he doesn’t look back at his time in the movie fondly. According to the actor, he just couldn’t relate to the character he was playing. Check out Bloom’s full comment below:

“Oh my god, ‘Troy.’ Wow. I think I just blanked that movie out of my brain by the way. So many people love that movie, but for me playing that character was just like [slits throat]. Am I allowed to say all of these things? I didn’t want to do the movie. I didn’t want to play this character.

“The movie was great. It was Brad [Pitt]. It was Eric [Bana] and Peter O’Toole. But how am I going to play this character? It was completely against everything I felt in my being.

“At one point it says Paris crawls along the floor having been beaten by somebody and holds his brother’s leg. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this.’ One of my agents at the time said, ‘But that’s the moment that will make it!’ And I completely fell for that line of a agent. I think that’s why I blanked that from my mind.”

Was Troy Worth The Struggle For Orlando Bloom?

The Movie Failed To Make A Lasting Impact

While Troy may have been a challenge for Bloom and not a project he enjoyed, it could certainly be worth it if it had a measurably positive impact on his career. The reviews for Troy, however, were mixed at best, with critics mostly agreeing that there’s little substance beneath all the movie’s spectacle. As a result, the film currently has a lackluster score of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score, however, is higher at 73%.

Despite a less-than-stellar reception, Troy was a box office hit. The movie grossed close to $500 million worldwide, with the spectacle and star power of figures like Pitt, Bana, and Bloom evidently a draw. Despite this, however, the movie hasn’t really lived on in popular culture. Gladiator, for example, another sword-and-sandal-type movie, made a little less than Troy at the box office, but it has clearly stood the test of time far more effectively and is looked back upon with more reverence.

It’s unclear if Troy‘s box office success opened any doors for Bloom, but the actor was already a recognizable star at the time due to his roles in The Lord of the Rings and the first Pirates of the Caribbean. The mixed reception to Troy and the box office underperformance of Kingdom of Heaven the next year, which Bloom also stars in, might actually explain why the actor’s biggest hits in the years afterward are almost exclusively Pirates of the Caribbean and The Hobbit sequels. In any case, Bloom is clearly content to leave Troy in the rearview mirror.

Source: Variety