Don’t expect to see Orlando Bloom pop up in Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings series.
The actor on Saturday addressed the possibility at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour, where he was on hand to promote his new Amazon fantasy series Carnival Row.
“It’s funny, I remember being on set with [director] Peter [Jackson] 20 years ago now and he was saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to think about when they want to do a remake of Lord of the Rings,‘” said Bloom, who was skeptical at the time. “We were in the midst of this remarkable shoot, and I was like, ‘Never going to happen, never going to happen!’
Fast-forward to today and Bloom — seated alongside Carnival Row co-star Cara Delevingne, creator Travis Beacham and showrunner Marc Guggenheim — admits just how wrong he was.”Here I am working for Amazon and they’re redoing it,” he says, laughing.
While the actor thinks it’s “great” that the streamer is taking it on, it doesn’t mean he’ll appear in it. “I don’t know how they’re going to approach it. I haven’t had any conversations about that, but I felt like I have done everything that…” Bloom trailed off, adding that while reappearing in Jackson’s Hobbit films made a lot of sense to him, he’s not so sure about coming back again.
“I like to think of myself as ageless, but…” he said, to laughs from the reporters and critics who filled the Beverly Hilton ballroom. Delevingne chimed in to affirm: “You are! You really are! It’s amazing.”
Still, Bloom isn’t sure there’s a place for him in the top-secret series. “I don’t know where I would fit in that world, really,” he added. “If you’re saying there’s Legolas, they’ve probably got a 19-year-old kid who’s ready to go.”
Earlier on Saturday, Amazon unveiled the creative team for the show, which is set to begin production in 2020. J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay will serve as showrunners, with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘s J.A. Bayona directing the first two episodes.
