ORLANDO BLOOM

"I was quite fearless as a kid," says Orlando Bloom, who is playing Legolas in the three "lord of the rings" films." But I've had to realize that I'm not invincible. That's what breaking your back does. It makes you grow up and reassess life."

Three years ago, when Bloom was 21, he fell three floors while trying to open the jammed door of a friend's apartment.

"I wasn't meant to walk again," he recalls, "but I had a miraculous recovery." Ironically, he's the fresh-faced rookie whose fall from a helicopter precipitates the ferocious Somali attack on American forces in "black hawk down".

Born in Canterbury, England, Bloom left school at 16 and moved to London to be an actor. " I never responded to teaching, " he says. " I was more interested in what was happening on the playing fields."

After his accident, he realized he needed "some kind of education", so he went to drama school. Then " lord of the rings" director Peter Jackson cast him as the agile archer elf.

Bloom has deliberately avoided teen films, he says. " I want to do work that has a message and casts a light over an area that's dark. But I'm fun and jovial, too. I bungee-jump, skydive, surf and snowboard. I still try to be fearless."