Jacob Elordi is climbing a ladder. It leads to the roof of his spare, sun-drenched Los Angeles home, which sits high in the Hills. Nestled just beneath the Hollywood Sign to be exact. The year is 2022 and Vogue is following Elordi around for their “24 Hours With” series, in which, as the title suggests, they spend 24 hours with the celebrity du jour. Elordi was on the precipice of stardom and while his modesty hid it well, there was an internal hum of excitement buzzing through him.
The camera is angled upward in a tight close-up of the 6 ‘5’’ Brisbane-born actor as he ascends each rickety rung of the ladder barefoot. Elordi jokes about plummeting to his death as he makes it to the top, flanked by nothing but blue skies and a solitary palm tree in the distance.
“I have this impossible memory,” he says from his unobstructed view of the Hollywood Sign, “I was where the stars on the boulevard are and there was this postcard of James Dean…I remember saying to my mom, like, ‘who is this guy?’ His head is everywhere.”
‘Frankenstein’ • Photo: Netflix.
“In my memory, it’s burned in as this slow-motion turnaround and there’s this giant white sign,” he says, “It’s impossible from where I was on the strip, but for some reason, that’s what stuck with me.” The cinematic flourishes of his eight-year-old brain feel more like the workings of an oracle as the same landmark stares back at him now. “I don’t know,” he says, “it’s quite magical.”
Jacob Elordi has become something of a household name with a recent Oscar nomination under his belt for portraying an Iggy Pop-inspired Frankenstein’s monster in Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 adaptation. He moistened theater seats as the brooding Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (2026), had audiences allured and aghast in equal measure as Barry Keoghan drank his bathwater in Fennell’s psychosexual thriller Saltburn (2023), and even took on a Southern drawl to depict the more shadowy side of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll under Sofia Coppola’s tutelage in Priscilla (2023). Almost all of these roles saw him in his signature calling card sideburns. The very attribute that caused Fennell to cast him in her Wuthering Heights adaptation before she’d even finished the screenplay.
‘Priscilla’ • Photo: A24.
With a quiet charisma too difficult to ignore, the Australian export managed to make it out of Netflix’s Kissing Booth (2018-2021) purgatory to play a nuanced selection of characters on the big screen. But really, we should have nothing but reverence for the teen rom-com trilogy that put Elordi on the map in the U.S. Without it, would the Jacob Elordi bathwater candle even exist? Who’s to say?
While he was still waiting in the wings of blockbuster success, the actor loomed over our televisions as Nate Jacobs, the repressed, ultraviolent quarterback in Euphoria (2019-2026), HBO’s dark coming-of-age series, which just wrapped and saw his character put to rest in the penultimate episode of its third and final season.
‘The Kissing Booth’ Season 3 • Photo: Netflix.
Back then, he lived at the movies and wondered when he’d get his turn in a film with an actual theatrical release. He sat in the darkened screening rooms of the Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles, biding his time. “Because of this terrifying new digital age,” he said in that aforementioned interview with Vogue, I’ve only ever made things that are on streamers or television and I haven’t really made a movie yet.” He had no idea that this was all about to change in a matter of months.
Still, anyone who’s ever caught even a couple minutes of Elordi on a late night show or on the press junket cycle knows that you don’t have to be a skilled journalist to get something good out of him. He’s a generous interview subject that leaves everyone swooning in his tracks (like the time he blessed a blushing Jimmy Kimmel with a peck). Even in the face of the horny masses, he’s maintained a commendable humility. He isn’t stuffy either. There’s an underlying cheekiness to his demeanor that’s not unlike his Aussie lodestar, Heath Ledger.
It all boils down to the restraint he brings to his hypermasculine characters. And, of course, his eclectic taste. Elordi leaves them wanting more and never walks away without making reference to an unexpected cultural touchpoint. For a guy whose list of first crushes begins with Orlando Bloom’s Lord of the Rings character Legolas and continues to include the likes of Barbara Eden in the ‘60’s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, and Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana, he deserves some credit for his wide-ranging appetite. Not to mention, he is currently dating perhaps the most offbeat member of the Kardashian/Jenner clan, who mirrors his lanky brand of sex appeal to a tee.
Elordi often cites James Dean as a source of inspiration for his sensitive approach to masculinity both on-and-off-screen. Dean embraced emotional vulnerability during a time when male actors weren’t allowed to cry. In a Lynn Hirschberg Screen Test for W Magazine, Elordi recalls shedding tears of his own at his very first concert. He and his mother had camped out to secure front row spots in the pit for Eminem. The rapper was in Australia touring his Marshall Mathers LP and Elordi was beside himself. “When he left the stage,” says Elordi, “I just wept.”
‘Euphoria’ • Photo: HBO.
When he’s not studying his sides or crying over Slim Shady, Elordi is immersed in a book. I can attest to this having seen him hidden-in-plain-sight on a bustling sidewalk of LA’s Larchmont neighborhood, burrowing into a paperback. Of course numerous paparazzi shots have also caught him carrying titles that sweaty performative men add to their carts with breakneck speed. But he resents being associated with starting that book-in-the-back-pocket trend. He’s just doing him. And besides, Elordi’s actual accessory is his Bottega Veneta Andiamo bag—of which he’s amassed quite the collection, thanks to his collaboration with the brand. Some straight men have tried to follow along with that particular trend, too, yielding unconvincing results.
Besides Bottega, Elordi is also the face of both Cartier and Chanel. He was directed by Alfonso Cuarón in The Chase, an ad for the latest Bleu de Chanel campaign that features him suited in a James Bond-inspired caper, running after his precious parfum L’Exclusif. While his modelesque physique hasn’t appeared on any runways just yet, he’s always a sight for sore eyes as a front row fixture at major fashion shows.
He’s conquered every screen, he reads books for fun, he’s a reluctant trendsetter (the best kind, btw), and is forever pushing past the bounds of masculinity. Plus he’s a total smokeshow. Maybe the kissing booth wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. My kingdom for some plywood and lip gloss, asap.
