From pirate in the Caribbean to dock boy in the Caymans

NEW YORK — Orlando Bloom's latest film, "Haven," places the actor squarely in the contemporary world after sword-wielding stints in "Lord of the Rings" and "Pirates of the Caribbean," but his predilection for exotic locales apparently hasn't changed.

"Haven" is set in the Cayman Islands, a British territory just south of Cuba.

"It's a real island story, but I think the youth-culture themes that run through it — sex, drugs, violence, peer pressure, race, class — are things that could be happening in downtown New York right now or in London or anywhere around the world," Bloom said in an interview.

"It's a very honest little movie. It doesn't comment or judge."

"Little" is certainly accurate. "Haven" is the creation of 24-year-old writer/director Frank E. Flowers, a native Caymanian who until now only had short films to his credit.

Bloom wasn't quite prepared at first for the workload of a small independent film.

"I remember the first night in the hotel when I got the schedule," he said. "I called up my manager and said, 'I have eight scenes tomorrow, three of them my biggest scenes in the movie. I'm terrified. I can't do this, are you kidding? You've got to get me out of this, I think I made a mistake.'

"It was that kind of nervous energy, that kind of excitement, that got me so emotionally invested in it."

"Someone said you make your first movie like it's going to be your only movie, and that's sort of the attitude we took with 'Haven,' " said director Flowers. "If this was the last movie I ever made, I'd be happy about it, because I was telling the story of my people."

"Haven" tells the interlocking tales of several people in the Caymans, from a teenage gangster named Fritz to a corrupt American businessman, played by Bill Paxton, to a poor white dock boy named Shy and the dark-skinned girl he loves, Andrea (Zoe Saldana).

"Initially I thought it wasn't for me, because [Flowers] wanted me to play Fritz, which I didn't really buy for me personally. But I said that the character of Shy was cool. He said, 'Give me a moment, I'll do some tweaks,' " said Bloom.

In a day or so, he said, Flowers "came back with Shy written for me, but in a way that maintained the integrity of the story as an ensemble film, and didn't feel like a star vehicle."

The romance between Shy and Andrea was amped up, and took on a decided "West Side Story" tone.

"But rather than race it was class, which I think is a lot of what happens on the islands and is probably a throwback to the English coming over," said Bloom, a 29-year-old native of Canterbury.

"There's no middle class in Caribbean culture; you're either rich or you're poor," said Saldana, who grew up in the Dominican Republic. "If you're rich it doesn't matter — money can buy you anything. Money can buy you the right color skin."

Bloom said he was lucky to find a window to shoot "Haven" despite his busy schedule. The actor had just wrapped on "Troy" when he arrived for "Haven," although he was already doing prep work for "Kingdom of Heaven." The second "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie came later for Bloom; he's currently working on the third.

"I'm very blessed. I sort of did it the other way around — I started with the big movies," he said.

"But these are the sorts of films I really love and go see myself," he said. "I love these movies where it's a character journey, and I hope to be making more of that."