Life’s been one huge accident

Orlando Bloom has made enough money in the past few years to buy a fleet of Bentleys, but claims to be more of a bus man. If you believe the Pirates of the Caribbean star, he likes nothing more than to hop on the No 22, for example, on the way to his latest celebrity engagement.

It used to be that no leading man’s lifestyle was complete without a flash sports car parked on Mulholland Drive, but Bloom is one of a growing number of A-listers keen to show off their green credentials.

In March he was among a string of stars attending the Oscars in a hybrid Toyota Prius; he is in the process of building his own eco-friendly house; and he recently threw his celebrity weight behind Global Cool, an initiative to cut carbon emissions by encouraging people to turn off televisions and other energy-draining gadgets.

But Bloom claims the bus trips, trains and cycle rides are not down to his guilty green conscience – he’s simply been too busy becoming rich and famous to find time to buy a car. He is trying to remedy the situation and is looking for one, although interestingly safety rather than greenness is his primary concern.

The 30-year-old actor is more accident zone than accident prone. He reels off the damage to date: he cracked his skull and broke his left arm falling out of a tree. He broke his nose during a rugby match. He broke his right leg skiing in Switzerland, his left leg in a motorbike crash and his right wrist snowboarding, and he cracked a rib falling from a horse while filming The Lord of the Rings.

But he excelled himself when in his second year of drama school in London. “I was in a friend’s apartment in Notting Hill and their roof terrace door had been mangled by the weather,” he says. “I kicked it from the inside, fell out, hung on to a drainpipe until it gave way and fell two storeys.”

After 12 days in hospital he left wearing two plates and six bolts in his back, plus a brace that he had to wear for 12 months – a vast improvement on the original prognosis, which had suggested he might not walk again.

Considering Bloom has since spent much of his film career wielding swords and firing bows and arrows, he’s a triumph of recovery.

He’s not taking any chances, though, and now has more good luck charms around his neck and wrists than Gypsy Rose Lee had in her factory. “My life is on a string,” he jokes grimly. “Up to that fall I was moving a bit too quickly in life. It was a wake-up call. After a life-threatening injury you are forced to confront your deepest fears. I made it a positive thing – to wake up and smell the roses.”

Bloom, who is now a Buddhist, has had his own personal rose garden ever since. He was hired as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings just two days after completing his studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (his progress delayed due to the injury).

In the drama school days he had a rented room and a clapped-out car. “I went down to an auction on the Wandsworth Bridge Road in London and bought a VW Golf, in dark green, for £160,” he recalls. “I drove it everywhere until it died on me.”

And now? He’s our most bankable box office star, having been in four of the 15 top-grossing films of all time. Make that five, after the latest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which also stars Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley, opened in cinemas on Friday and is expected to gross around a billion dollars worldwide during the next few months.

He’s doing what sensible stars always do, putting it into bricks and mortar. Not any old bricks, either. “I’m building a house that is powered by a new technology for solar panels,” Bloom explains. “I will be using energy efficient lightbulbs and I am trying to think of how to use as many recycled materials as possible.”

It might be new age but the project has suffered old-style setbacks. “It has, so far, taken double the time and cost double the budget,” he says. “And it has been so stressful.”

The new house is in London where Bloom is looking forward to relaxing near family and friends after eight years of epic filmic adventures and constant travelling. Between filming, Bloom has fitted in a trip to Antarctica with Global Green, an environmental lobby group, to see the effects of global warming for himself.

“I spent three weeks on a 1950s Norwegian icebreaker,” he says. “I slept in a room the size of a bus shelter, shared a toilet and bathroom with 27 other dudes and did the washing up.

“It was the best real experience I’ve had in a long time. There were no privileges. The privilege was being in that position. I went scuba diving – the water was freezing but I had a swim for the hell of it – and climbed up a mountain. It was crazy.”

Bloom’s next project will be even more of a challenge. Having split from long-term girlfriend Kate Bosworth last year, he has since been linked to actresses Kirsten Dunst and Penelope Cruz.

He is now on the lookout for true love and recently revealed he had signed up to the Facebook networking website under a false name and using a friend’s photo.

“It’s difficult to know sometimes whether girls like me or the guy they see in Pirates of the Caribbean,” he says. “This way I get to know them from behind a disguise.”

Girls trawling the website hoping to stumble upon the dashing movie hunk should look out for an accident-prone 30-year-old whose interests include cycling, recycling and bus travel.

On his CD changer

I listen to my iPod when I'm being driven anywhere. I like the Raconteurs, a band called Beirut, and I'm still listening to the Clash, the Rolling Stones and the Band of Horses. They have a great song called The Funeral.