“Lord of the Rings” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Orlando Bloom is currently starring in the West End play, “Killer Joe” at Trafalgar Studios in London. However, his Thursday matinee performance saw him get mad and stop the play twice because a woman in the audience was using her iPad.
As reported by AOL UK, audience members did note that Bloom managed to keep totally in character as Killer Joe himself, while berating the woman for distracting him, using typically colourful language.
The play involves Bloom playing the role of a hitman.
West End play stopped twice for iPad-wielding woman
The actor is probably used to fans pointing cameras at him in public, but when acting in a play, Orlando Bloom got mad. He twice told a woman in the audience to put down her iPad, speaking directly to her, while staying totally in character. According to them, he first told the woman to stop, but when she continued, he lost his cool and spoke directly to her again, telling her to put away that “f*****g iPad” now, adding that he would wait until she did.
As reported by The Times, several audience members headed to Twitter after the performance to tell the tale, including a freelance theatre critic, Mark Shenton.
Another audience member, Philippa Hall, called the performances in the play brilliant all round and went on to say well done to Bloom for berating the woman for using her iPad to Film the play. She said he then very smoothly continued the show.
Producers of ‘Killer Joe’ confirm incident
Confirming that the incident did happen, the producers of the play said that the theatre where the performance was held was a “very intimate performance space.” They said that the use of phones and iPads by audience members can be very distracting to the performers.
Other performers interrupted by electronic technology
This isn’t the first time an incident of this nature has happened at the intimate theatre. A Scottish actor, James McAvoy, was acting in a 2013 performance when he told an audience member to stop taking video footage of the play.
Now disgraced Kevin Spacey also experienced the problem in 2014 at the Old Vic during his one-man show “Clarence Darrow” after a mobile phone started ringing. He also spoke directly to the audience member, saying that if they didn’t answer that phone, he would.
More recently, Paul McCartney had the same problem while performing The Cavern Club in Liverpool during a visit to his hometown. McCartney stopped singing to tell audience members to please put down their phones as he found it very distracting. The late singer, Prince would not sing if anyone was using their mobile phone.