During the UK premiere of Kingdom of Heaven, Empire Online got a chance to ask actor Orlando Bloom about his return to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and th upcoming sequels.

"Going back to it has been just a lot of fun," said a tanned, long-haired and wispily-bearded Bloom, who will reprise his role as blacksmith-turned-pirate Will Turner, alongside Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow and Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann. "I'm trying to recapture the same character and let him develop in ways that are interesting. We're not just trying to rehash the same old thing."

That does indeed seem to be the case, for – although Bloom has yet to get fully up to speed for Pirates 3 ("We're shooting parts of three, but I still haven't seen the script!") – he did fill us in on where we meet Will at the beginning of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (that's Pirates 2 to you lot; Pirates 3 hasn't got a pithy title as of yet).

"Umm, well, I can't give too much away," he said, mindful of the three red dots that suddenly appeared on his forehead, courtesy of the Jerry Bruckheimer-sponsored sniper team across the street, "but obviously at the end of the first movie you see him in the clutches of Elizabeth. But the course of true love never runs smooth in love in life, does it? So a few things come up and he goes off on another journey to save Elizabeth and the lives of everybody else.

"But I think he's going to assume more of the pirate's role," he continued, "and by the end of the third movie there's a few dark twists to the character of Will Turner and I think people are going to wonder what his motives are and what he's all about."

CLICK HERE for the entire article over at Empire Online.

Dont't forget to also check out: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End