ON THE BRINK
SOME GUYS ARE METHOD ACTORS. JACOB ELORDI IS A METHOD LIFTER.
To prepare for the new season of HBO’s Euphoria, in which he plays an amoral high school quarterback, Elordi, 24, headed to a gym he prefers not to name, an exclusive luxury ab bunker in Los Angeles popular among You Tubers, TikTok teens and other wretches of the hype milieu who, invariably, train shirtless.
“I would never train shirtless,” Elordi says, “but from day dot, I would just rip my shirt off and have, like, headphones on, playing Rage Against the Machine. I was trying to understand this mentality of what it is to be in the gym and look at yourself in the mirror and be like, ‘Faaaack, I look good’.”
This is not Elordi’s typical vibe. When we meet at a Blue Bottle Coffee in Malibu, he seems to be trying very hard not to be seen. He’s tied an expensive-looking floral scarf around the lower half of his face, and he is wearing large black sunglasses. His pants and jacket are loose and Carhartt-y. Between his height – he’s six-foot-five (195cm) – his partly obscured face and his baggy clothes, he gives the impression of several children stacked on one another’s shoulders, disguised as a grown man. It is immediately clear to all in this cafe that he is an incognito famous person.
The Malibuans who do recognise him, by his thick brows, maybe, would likely be surprised that he does not often think, Faaaack, I look good – that Jacob Elordi is not as obsessed with Jacob Elordi’s body as everyone else is.
Right now he’s more preoccupied with being noticed for something besides his pecs, his height, his out-of-this-world jawline and his dating life. He’d like to be noticed for his work, for instance. Beyond starring in second season, premiering on January 9, Elordi will appear alongside Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas in (streaming on Amazon Prime from January 14), a film based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith and coadapted by Sam Levinson.
