Orlando Bloom was a part of two of the most lucrative franchises at the beginning of the millennium: Lord of the Rings and Disney’s theme park-based trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean. While Bloom played the charismatic and beautiful character of Legolas in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s magnum opus, his character of William Turner was far less so.
On the set of the blockbuster movie franchise, it seems that Bloom had tried to play off young Turner as cooler than he was, aping certain pirate captain in close vicinity, only for the director of the first film, Gore Verbinski, to take him down a peg.
According to Gore Verbinksi, Will Turner was a ‘dork’
By the end of his arc in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Will Turner becomes the captain of The Flying Dutchman. However, before reaching that milestone, the character very much starts as a bumbling comic relief, or at least a serious character surrounded by comical accidents. It seems Bloom must have been the correct choice for the character, given that he tried to play the character with a lot more of a ‘cool factor’ than what it called for.
Gore Verbinski, the director of the first three films in the franchise, commented to Bloom “You are still a dork”, as the actor tried to emulate Johnny Depp in his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow. The actor was more than convinced that his character would require a certain amount of swagger, as does Will Turner, only for them to fall flat on their face due to some external matter (like Gore being the counterpart to Bloom what William Turner’s master, John Brown)
Will Turner was a better swordsman than Jack Sparrow
Despite all the talk about Will Turner being an uncool character compared to the likes of Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa and Commodore Norrington, it turns out that by design, the character was depicted as being better than the rest of them at swordsmanship. Given that the series always has a fair share of swordplay, it comes as high praise when the creators of the show decide
According to the screenwriter’s commentary on the DVD, it has been revealed that Jack Sparrow is the worst of the main cast at using a sword. The best swordsman of all the characters, however, seems to be William Turner, closely followed by Barbossa and Norrington. Given this information, it does put the three-way sword fight between Norrington, Turner and Sparrow into perspective, showing what a brilliant strategist and tactician Sparrow is, keeping up with the Commodore and William simultaneously.
