Jacob Elordi

Jacob Elordi (born 26 June 1997) is an Australian actor.

Jacob Elordi was born on 26 June 1997 in Brisbane, Queensland, to a working class family consisting of his parents—John, a house painter who spent 13 years building the family's house, and Melissa, a stay-at-home mother and one-time cafeteria employee at Jacob's school—one older brother, and three older sisters.

John emigrated to Australia from the Basque Country at age eight.

While a player on his school's rugby team, Elordi performed in school musicals starting at age 12, starring in productions of Seussical and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and he soon began taking acting classes.

He has stated that he was first inspired to become an actor by Heath Ledger, particularly because of his role in the 2008 film The Dark Knight.

He also played Oberon in a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

At age 14, Elordi started practicing his American accent, modelling it after that of Vin Diesel.

He attempted modelling at his mother's suggestion at age 15, but was told he was too tall to fit into the sample clothes.

Elordi attended the private Roman Catholic, all-boys secondary schools of St Kevin's College, Melbourne, and St Joseph's College, Nudgee, in Brisbane.

Throughout secondary school, Elordi continued to play rugby until he broke a bone in his back during a match, which, according to him, pushed him away from athletics and toward acting.

He has stated that, after reading Waiting for Godot in a theater class at age 15, acting "became [his] church" and his personality changed as a result.

His mother also encouraged him to pursue acting.

He was inspired by actors such as Marlon Brando, Laurence Olivier, Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale, and Ledger and would read their biographies while emulating their behaviours.

He has stated that he "barely finished high school".

After moving to Los Angeles in 2017 to pursue an acting career, he gained prominence with his role as Noah Flynn, the bad boy love interest in the The Kissing Booth film trilogy (2018–2021) on Netflix.

He later attended an acting school in Melbourne and moved to the United States in 2017 at age 19 to pursue a career in acting.

Elordi's first experience on a Hollywood film set was in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as an extra.

His first acting role was on the Australian film Swinging Safari in 2018, playing the role of Rooster.

Elordi starred in the Netflix romantic comedy film The Kissing Booth, which premiered in May 2018, as Noah Flynn, a "bad-boy jock" and the film's primary love interest.

Despite largely negative critical reception, the film became one of Netflix's most-watched titles in 2018 and brought Elordi to widespread fame.

He also became known for his main role as the troubled high school football player Nate Jacobs on the HBO teen drama series Euphoria (2019–present).

His film roles as Elvis Presley in the biopic Priscilla and as a wealthy university student in Saltburn (both 2023) brought him wider recognition and earned him critical praise.

He reprised the role in the sequels The Kissing Booth 2, which filmed in mid-2019 in Cape Town, and was released in July 2020; and The Kissing Booth 3, which was released on Netflix in August 2021.

In a 2023 interview for GQ, he stated that he had not wanted to make them, calling them "ridiculous" and stating that he did them to "do whatever the fuck [he had] to do" to become an actor in the United States.

He also spoke out against his objectification as a result of the films.

After filming was completed for the first Kissing Booth film, Elordi moved to Los Angeles.

He helped a friend of his film an audition for a role in Sam Levinson's HBO drama series Euphoria, a remake of the Israeli series of the same name.

While occasionally sleeping in his car and couch surfing at friends' houses with little money left and his visa expiring soon, he auditioned for Euphoria himself, with plans for it to be his last audition before moving back home.

He was then selected to play Nate Jacobs, a troubled high school football player with an abusive father, whom he portrayed from the show's pilot episode in 2019.

Elordi described the character as "a narcissist" and "a sociopath", while Clay Skipper of British GQ described the character as an antihero.

The role was described by Maanya Sachdeva of The Guardian as an "impressive career pivot" for Elordi and Samantha Bergeson of IndieWire called it his breakout role.

He also appeared in the 2019 horror anthology film The Mortuary Collection.

Elordi then starred in Lance Hool's 2020 romantic drama film 2 Hearts as Chris Gregory, a Loyola University freshman and the film's narrator, opposite Tiera Skovbye.

Entertainment Weekly's Maureen Lee Lenker wrote that his performance in the film was "ham-fistedly goofy" while Owen Gleiberman of Variety opined that Elordi was "done no favors by being in" 2 Hearts.

He appeared later that year as Paul Hogan's son in the Australian comedy film The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee.

In 2022, he appeared as Charlie, a piano teacher and one of Ana de Armas's character's lovers, in Adrian Lyne's erotic thriller Deep Water, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1957 novel of the same name.

In 2023, Elordi starred as Ian, a British film actor, in Sean Price Williams' drama film The Sweet East, which premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

Williams based Elordi's character in the film on Robert Pattinson following his role in The Twilight Saga.

He also starred in the 2023 crime thriller film He Went That Way, directed by Jeffrey Darling and adapted from the 1987 Conrad Hilberry novel Luke Karamazov, as Bobby, a 19-year-old serial killer.

The film received negative reviews from critics, with Glenn Kenny of The New York Times writing in a review, "Elordi's performance here lacks the discipline he applied to his work in Priscilla and even the wretched Saltburn."