Brave new world

2:00pm Thursday 24th May 2007

ORLANDO BLOOM TAKES TIME OUT FOR ADVENTURES

Orlando Bloom may have taken the title of his latest film a bit too literally. The 30-year-old British actor stars in the eagerly-awaited latest Pirates Of The Caribbean movie which opens tonight.

It's subtitled "At World's End" and it turns out that's pretty much where Bloom has been. He went as far south as it is possible to go without falling off on a trip to Antarctica in conditions which were far from movie star splendour.

Bloom is a keen environmentalist and when his cousin, a photographer, went to the bottom of the world to take photographs for a book about global warming Bloom went along too.

"I wanted to check out that environment," he says. "I wanted to see what was at stake. It is easy to sit here and see how the weather patterns are affecting it, but I wanted to see for myself.

"I spent three weeks on a 1950s Norwegian icebreaker. I slept in a room the size of a bus shelter and was on the top bunk. I shared a toilet and bathroom with 27 other guys and did the washing up," he laughs. "There were no privileges. The privilege was being in that position at that time.

"I went scuba diving and climbed up a mountain," he says. "The water was freezing, but I had a swim for the hell of it. It was crazy."

The latest Pirates film was shot in considerably warmer climes, in Hawaii. Bloom turned 30 during the shoot so he had a birthday party in Hawaii and another in Los Angeles.

"I have to tell you that it felt very good to reach 30 and it felt good to have lived this far," he says thoughtfully. "I thought I would never make it to 30. It feels different. It feels less...urgent."

That is reflected in the fact that for the first time in eight years Bloom is out of work - by choice. He went straight from drama school at the Guildhall to Lord of the Rings and he hasn't stopped since.

Now he's taking time to stop and smell the roses. But he is still plagued by photographers. There were snaps for example of him and Victoria's Secret model Miranda Kerr. Bloom, single since he split with Kate Bosworth, is philosophical.

"It's like a trade-off," he says. "I did not go to drama school expecting to deal with all of this stuff or that I would even get to the point when it would be part of my life."

Having said that he did get the opportunity to send up his whole image with his guest appearance on the second season of Extras, portraying himself as being hugely embittered against Pirates co-star Johnny Depp.

"Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant are fantastic," he says with delight. "I loved what Kate Winslet did on Extras and I thought it would be great to do something like that.

"They wrote a script and I said, 'There has to be more to be had here'. I said I have not done two trilogies not to have a dig at some of it' so I ended up taking the mickey out of myself."