As A Lantern In The Dark

Setting aside the identities of a sindarin archer and enigmatic constable, Orlando Bloom takes on a sanguine conversation about our real role in this world.

- Joy Ling

It’s hardly a surprise that one of Orlando Bloom’s favourite companions has joined him for the shoot. “He follows me everywhere,” he chuckles. “He’s just such a sweet, happy dog, you know?” Oh, but we do. The world is no stranger to the adorable Mighty. That red toy poodle who pokes out of Bloom’s bag as a ride-along. We’ve seen him enjoying a little trim. We’ve seen him twinning with Katy Perry’s Nugget. But apart from Mighty’s endearing presence and the occasional headline, sometimes it seems we know nothing about Bloom, the actor.

“I think my generation—my peers at least—was raised with the idea to be private. Not to overshare. As an actor, you want to step into character and suspend the audience’s reality, so if they know too much about you, it’s harder,” Bloom explains, “but I feel that I was put out there a lot to begin with. There was a lot of noise around me and who I was dating in my youth because of the image I was presented with, which wasn’t my intention.”

So, he turned to social media, wresting some form of control over his exposure of his own life to the rest of the world. If Instagram is the highlight reel for most regular folk, it operates in quite the opposite direction for the regular celebrity. To him, it’s an outlet for people to have a bit more understanding about him beyond what the headlines say in the tabloids. (“It’s a cool thing to be able to share my idiosyncrasies as well as serious matters with people who are interested in what I’m up to.”) He eschews gaming the social media’s algorithms; his follower count is as organic as they come (he is at 3.3 million followers at press time). With his induction into the Instagram landscape within the last three years, how does he feel he’s doing so far?