With roles in two of Hollywood's biggest films this winter - the highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings and Ridley Scott's modern war epic, Black Hawk Down - Orlando Bloom may be Britain's hottest young export since Jude Law. "It does seem like a good time to be in the business," says the striking 24-year-old Canterbury native, who got his start performing with Britain's National Youth Theatre and who landed the role of Legolas, the 2,900-year-old elven warrior in Lord of the Rings before he'd even finished drama school in London. What's more, Bloom finds it ironic that he won the most ambitious and physically demanding roles of his young career (he plays a US Ranger in Black Hawk Down) less that two years after a fall from a three-story window left him with a shattered spine and a question mark over his future. He spent most of his final year at the prestigious Guildhall School of Drama swaddled in a back brace and relegated to supporting roles.

Clearly, however, his health has improved, during Rings arduous 18-month shoot in New Zealand, he learned sword fighting, horseback riding and archery. "There's one scene where I'm cantering along, and I have to let go of the reins, pull out my bow and shoot it," he says with a disbelieving laugh. "It's real cowboys-and-Indians stuff, and I can tell you it's really hard."

But he insists that being cast as an elf with Spock-like ears and rock-star locks has nothing to do with talent. "On Rings, if you were short you were cast as a Hobbit, and if you wer tall you were cast as a human," he says with a laugh. "And if you were kind of wierd and mousy looking you were cast as an Elf."