Life on Planet Orlando
Clueless star’s cringeworthy ‘routine’
THE Internet’s latest hot debate is whether Orlando Bloom’s “A Life in the Day,” his rundown of his daily activities for The Sunday Times of London, can possibly be for real.
Of course it is.
If this pandemic has ratified one collective suspicion, it’s that 99.9 percent of celebrities are thoroughly absurd.
While we struggle in lockdown, they live their best lives — except Harry and Meghan, who are simultaneously living their best lives while claiming to be victimized by everyone else.
We’ve been zoning out on Zoom while Hollywood broadcasts awards shows to record-low viewership. We’ve been jostling for jabs while they keep splaying their perfect lives all over Instagram.
So yes, Orlando Bloom is very much for real. Consider these gems:
“I wake up at around 6:30. I have a smart-ring sleep tracker and the first thing I do is look at the app to see if I’ve had a good sleep and check my readiness for the day.”
Spoiler alert: Bloom and his fiancée, Katy Perry, have a newborn. Apparently, this newborn sleeps through the night, every night, leaving her parents constantly refreshed and rested.
“Then I check on my daughter,’ Bloom says, “who’s usually up and cooing in her cot.’’
No stinky, leaky, diaper changes, no crankiness, no crying that can’t be contained — and, most importantly for little Daisy, no bottle or breakfast immediately.
In Hollywood, we fast after waking. Disordered eating: It’s never too early to start.
Instead, baby Daisy practices “eye-gazing’’ with her daddy.
“I’m a Capricorn,” Bloom tells us. “So I crave routine.”
Alas, say goodbye to Daisy, who does not reappear in Bloom’s day until her bedtime.
It’s such a great marker of Bloom’s cluelessness and vapidity that he doesn’t even realize he’s neglecting his newborn to spend his days fixating on what he won’t eat while “dreaming about roles for myself and others — minorities and women. I’m trying to be a voice for everybody.”
Ask yourself: Have you been this productive — and effortlessly woke — in quarantine?
Back to fasting before breakfast: Bloom tells us he has to “earn” that first meal, so he has “some green powders that I mix with brain octane oil, collagen powder for my hair and nails, and some protein” before going on a hike.
He also tells us he’s “90% plant-based, so I’ll only eat a really good piece of meat maybe once a month. I sometimes look at a cow and think that’s the most beautiful thing ever.”
It’s the “Spinal Tap” of self-reflection. Orlando Bloom, please keep going.
“During COVID, I started building Lego again,” he shares. “I build mostly cars and find the methodical nature of creating this little thing makes me feel like I’m achieving something else.”
He also chants for 20 minutes every day, “religiously.”
He is 44 years old. We interrupt this interview to check in on the tweets of one Tom Strachan: “A friend’s first job in film was solely to go across London twice a day to get Orlando Bloom coffee from one single Starbucks he claimed was the best in London.”
“Obviously,” the British film editor continues, “my mate just went to the nearest and sat there for an hour before bringing it back and Bloom couldn’t tell.”
Katy Perry, meanwhile, barely rates a mention from Bloom. Same for the 10-year-old son from Bloom’s previous relationship with Miranda Kerr.
Like most celebrities, Bloom is a grade-A narcissist most interested in himself: His food intake, his workouts, the Buddhist practice that allows him to “change the narrative in my head” and that all-important sleep tracker, which comes back into play after a wholesome night watching a movie or documentary — for work, of course.
No binge eating, no comfort cocktails, no pandemic weight gain or depression or existential crises to bear. No mention of the nannies surely attending to his newborn, whose whereabouts and moods he wonders not.
In fact, the pandemic itself is mentioned only obliquely and to shame the rest of us: “I like to make an effort,” he says. “No tracksuit bottoms.”
Even Gwyneth Paltrow admits she gained 14 pounds during quarantine. I never thought I’d say this, but Gwyneth does it better.
Bloom does tell us he’s learned a big life lesson during lockdown: “Time is so precious,” he says. “I was always giving my time to other people before. Now I have the space to dream.”
Of course, he thinks, we benefit. Oh, Orlando Bloom: We already have.