Killer Joe: Why Orlando Bloom wanted to play a misogynist and a sociopath

Image copyrightMARC BRENNER

Image captionOrlando Bloom plays a contract killer in Killer Joe

Katy Perry didn't mean to go viral last week when she left a comment on Orlando Bloom's Instagram account.

"I need a season pass for that ass," Bloom's on-off girlfriend wrote after he posted an image promoting his new West End role in Killer Joe.

A few minutes went by before she followed up with: "Oops. I meant to send that to you privately."

Fans reacted with glee to Perry's apparent mishap, but it's only when you go and see Killer Joe that you realise what spurred her to make the initial comment.

The play features a great deal of nudity - including from Bloom himself. But, the actor tells BBC News: "It was all handled very tastefully.

"I would say the sensitivity around, not just the nudity, but the characters, the world, it's all been handled with such integrity, it's made us all feel safe.

"So whilst we're in this very intimate house, and you literally have people on stage with you, I think we all feel very safe in the little trailer within that world that we created."

Image captionSophie Cookson plays 20-year-old Dottie in the play

Killer Joe tells the story of a struggling family who live in a trailer park, who come up with a plan to have their mother murdered in order to cash in on her insurance policy.

They hire a contract killer - played by Bloom in the show's titular role - to carry out the deed. But things, of course, start to go wrong.

The Tracey Letts play was made into a film in 2011 film starring Matthew McConaughey, but Bloom says he didn't let the movie influence his performance.

"I have to say I'm a big fan of Matthew McConaughey so I did see it years ago, but it wasn't fresh," he says.

"It was a long time ago, because it was the beginning of the McConnaissance.

"It was more interesting to look at other films of that feel and that period like Blood Simple and Badlands."

The role marks Bloom's first theatre role in five years, and his first time in the West End in more than a decade, and the actor is keen for fans of his previous work on blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean to see him in a different context.

Image captionBloom last West End stage role was more than a decade ago

"I've been wanting to do something on stage for a very long time," he says.

"It's been five years since I did Romeo [on Broadway] and I haven't been in London since I did In Celebration [a 2007 production of David Storey's play].

"I was asked about [Killer Joe] a year ago, then it came back around, and I just wanted to change the conversation from Pirates and Legolas to something more dynamic, dark and interesting."

In the show's plot, one of the conditions of Joe's contract is he is allowed to begin a sexual relationship with Dottie, the 20-year-old daughter of the family, as a "retainer" until he is paid.

Seeing a young woman being used as a commodity makes for uncomfortable viewing, despite Dottie's willingness to go along with the arrangement.

But, Bloom argues, Joe has some redeeming qualities.

"This play was written 20 years ago. We are unpicking the basis of life's characters," he says.

"And we're trying to mine the gold, mine the compassion, have a sense of understanding and bring some sense of love and joy to it, because that's what each of those characters is asking for you.

Image captionJoe uses his relationship with Dottie as a "retainer" until he is paid for the killing

"As an actor, you have to find that. To be able to stand on stage I have to look at it and go, 'what is it about Joe that I can compassionately understand for myself?'

"He's a sociopath, 100%, he's misogynistic, but there's a moral quality. I had to find things for myself."

In addition to Bloom's nudity in the show, Sophie Cookson, who plays Dottie, is also seen naked during an intense seen where Joe takes her virginity.

But the actress says: "For me it never feels gratuitous, it's very much a part of the story.

"Dottie is the the joy and the lightness and the purity of the piece, so to see her stripped of all of that... and everyone talks about corrupting each other, that is a moment, even though it's consensual, it's very much a coming-of-age moment."

Bloom chips in: "I think if Dottie wasn't played as somebody who wasn't as strong as Sophie is playing it, you'd get a different take on this piece of writing."

Sophie agrees: "She could very easily be a victim." Bloom adds: "And that would be a mistake."

Critics saw the show for the first time this week, and reviews have been mixed.

Image captionSteffan Rhodri and Adam Gillen star as the family's father and son

The Stage gave it the most scathing review, awarding it one star and describing it as "nasty to a fault, and shocking for no other reason than to shock".

"Confused about whether it's comic or not, farce or horror, its cast of grotesques, acted to their extremist edges, encourages laughter more often than revulsion.

"That's a queasy directorial decision."

But in a four-star review for The Times, Dominic Maxwell wrote: "The acting, the torrid atmosphere, is mostly a triumph.

"I challenge anyone to explain Letts's play fully, but you come out of this unsettling, nasty, amusing evening knowing that you have had an experience."

The play also received four-star reviews from The Financial Times, Metro and The Guardian.

The Independent's Paul Taylor said: "Bloom's fine performance gathers in intensity and by the end he's in full sinister command of the stage."

But, he added: "The production will sell out because of its star but, in general, it's disappointing and leaves the play looking somewhat dated."

Others were also unenthusiastic, with Henry Hitchings giving it two stars in The Evening Standard, and The Hollywood Reporter describing it as "half-cocked".

Is Ocean's 8 a waste of talent?

Media captionThe Ocean's 8 cast were on the red carpet for the premiere in New York

Critics have given broadly positive reviews to Ocean's 8 - but some say it could have been so much better given the quality of the actors involved.

Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna and Anne Hathaway are among the all-star cast in the heist movie, which is a reboot of the Ocean's 11 franchise.

There are nods to previous films - Bullock and Blanchett effectively take on the roles of George Clooney and Brad Pitt as the two masterminds, while rapper and actress Awkwafina is an updated version of Matt Damon's gifted pickpocket.

But other things are different.

Image copyrightWARNER BROS

Image captionSarah Paulson, Sandra Bullock and Rihanna all star in Ocean's 8

The target this time is a diamond necklace worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which the team plan to steal at the Met Gala.

Given this setting, there are more cameos than we normally expect from an Ocean's movie - with Serena Williams, Anna Wintour, Tommy Hilfiger and Kim Kardashian all making appearances.

But while several reviews praised the film, some critics agreed it was a wasted opportunity.

• 8 things we learned from the Ocean's 8 trailer

"There's a glaring incompetency here in [director Gary] Ross bringing such talents together and not knowing what the hell to do with them," wrote The Guardian's Benjamin Lee in his two-star review.

"The lifeless direction, the unrefined script, the underwhelming cameos, the distinct lack of fizz - there's a slapdash nature to the assembly of Ocean's 8 that makes it feel like the result of a rushed, often careless process.

"It's made watchable thanks to the cast but star power alone cannot mask creative inadequacy. Stealing a diamond necklace is bad but wasting an opportunity like this is unforgivable."

Image copyrightREUTERS

Image captionJames Corden plays a detective in the film

Vulture's Emily Yoshida said: "A flabby final chapter involving James Corden as the detective assigned to the robbery feels like a wild miscalculation.

"After vastly underusing Rihanna, of all people, you're going to bring James Corden in to finish the job? And you're going to give him the one-liners that have been missing from the rest of the film? Who wants to see that?

"I left Ocean's 8 more convinced than ever that no amount of fierce, fantastic female ensembles can overcome the mediocrity of a dull male director."

In his three-star review, Empire's Ian Freer said: "There is something refreshing about seeing a group of women thrive on their wits, guile, smarts, cunning, proficiency and chutzpah rather than sex.

"It's just a shame they weren't tested even further. They could have handled it."

Some critics were more positive, although most had some reservations.

Image copyrightWARNER BROS

Image captionThe all-star cast also includes Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham-Carter alongside Bullock

Variety's Owen Gleiberman said: "The first thing to say about Ocean's 8 is that it takes the bad karma that clung - unfairly - to the Ghostbusters remake and leaves it out in the trash.

"For here's a gender-flipped sequel that not only works just fine, but renders the whole 'novelty' of the concept a borderline irrelevance."

Sarah Paulson and Cate Blanchett "don't get a chance to create indelible characters" because "they don't get enough good lines," he said.

"Anne Hathaway, however, is commanding at every moment; even her red-carpet myopia has awareness."

'So light it might just float away'

Variety wasn't the only outlet to single out Hathaway for praise.

"While Bullock and Blanchett get the meat of the script to work with, surprisingly it's Hathaway who slinks off with the entire movie - in part because she gets to play a glamorous, soulless simulacrum of herself," according to Vox's Alex Abad-Santos.

But, the review added: "The most suspenseful and unpredictable part of the film is seeing what glorious costume your favourite actress will turn up in in next...

"It makes the heist, and by extension the movie, feel so light it might just float away, draped in a stylish gown."

'Female clones' of Clooney and Pitt

The Hollywood Reporter said it was "self-satisfied" and "only occasionally as much fun as it thinks it is".

Critic David Rooney wrote: "Rather than reimagining them as newly minted characters, Ross locks himself into a limiting corner by treating Debbie and Lou strictly as female clones of Clooney's Danny and Brad Pitt's Rusty Ryan in the earlier films."

The Radio Times' Emma Simmonds, who awarded it three stars, said the cast were "divine" but said: "Perhaps the film coasts too heavily on the sheer novelty of watching women band together to steal stuff, failing to establish its own unique flavour."

Mashable's Angie Han said: "It doesn't want to tell you how powerful it can be when women band together in a man's world - it just wants to show you how fun it'd be to round up a girl gang and steal some jewels.

"In its own way, that's kind of empowering, too."