Jacob Elordi didn't name his three 'pretty bad' early films — Netflix made a trilogy with him
Jacob Elordi is an Oscar nominee now, and he is still apologising for the early work most of the world actually watched. Fans of his breakout teen hit have heard this speech before.
Jacob Elordi spent Friday evening, 16 October, at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre explaining how John Cassavetes kept him sane. It was the first American event of Cartier Cinema Club, the luxury house's film initiative launched at Venice last month. Elordi, a Cartier ambassador, picked the screening himself: Opening Night (1977), with Gena Rowlands as a stage actress coming apart before a Broadway premiere. Sean Baker sat beside him, and screenwriter Kim Morgan moderated.
Then the Oscar nominee for Frankenstein said this about his younger self:
"I probably made three movies that I thought were pretty bad when I was young, and I had hopes and dreams of being this kind of terrific, ferocious stage actor. So I was pretty not fond of myself at that time."
— Jacob Elordi, at the Cartier Cinema Club screening, via The Hollywood Reporter
He did not name the films. He did not really need to, because his early CV is short and one entry in it is a Netflix franchise with a number on the end.
Three films, one obvious trilogy
Before Euphoria, Saltburn and Priscilla, most of the planet knew Elordi as Noah Flynn, the brooding older brother in Netflix's The Kissing Booth. Three films, released in 2018, 2020 and 2021. To be fair, he never said the words "Kissing Booth" on Friday, and the link is our reading, not his. But it is hardly a stretch, because he has said much the same thing before, only louder:
- November 2023, GQ: "I didn't want to make those movies before I made those movies. Those movies are ridiculous. They're not universal. They're an escape."
- The same week: co-star Taylor Zakhar Perez told Variety that "it's a shame that was his experience on the set".
- January 2024, Saturday Night Live: Sarah Sherman heckled him about The Kissing Booth during his monologue, and he conceded that "kissing is kind of weird when you think about it".
So Friday was not a confession. It was the third instalment, which feels about right for a man with a trilogy to get off his chest.
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Embarrassed by the one everybody saw
Most actors are sheepish about the low-budget horror they made at 19 that nobody watched. Elordi has it the other way round. Netflix's Ted Sarandos called the first Kissing Booth one of the most-watched films in the country, with one in three viewers watching it again. The sequel was the third most-viewed release on the platform the weekend it arrived in July 2020. Critics were less charmed: 15%, 27% and 25% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Joey King, who played Elle, has said she "couldn't be prouder of those movies". The fans who made the trilogy a hit are now hearing, once again, that their comfort film was something their favourite actor had to survive.
Most stars hide the film nobody saw. Elordi keeps apologising for the one everybody watched twice.
That is the odd bit. The films that turned him into a global name are the only ones he keeps disowning in public, and he keeps doing it from the very stage they built for him.
Vodka, windows and Ari Aster
The rest of the evening was about craft. Elordi rewatched Opening Night last week while preparing for his next film; he did not name it, but THR notes he is due to start shooting Ari Aster's Scapegoat with Scarlett Johansson, Jude Law, Ella Purnell and Caleb Landry Jones. His preparation sounds cheerful: "throwing myself on the floor and wondering, should I just drink a lot of vodka? Or should I smash a window?"
He also put his tally at "over 10 movies or something like that". Ten-plus films, an Oscar nomination and a Cartier contract, and the three that still nag at him are the three that made him famous. If Scapegoat goes badly, at least he knows the drill: wait a few years, then call it pretty bad.
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