Extended Interview: Jacob Elordi

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So, what does Jacob Alordi have on his mind? He speaks with Sunday Mornings Tracy Smith.

So we're just going to dive right into Frankenstein. Is that cool with you? Come on, please.

Okay. No pleasantries. No, please don't. Forget them.

So Frankenstein, you've called this the most demanding role of your career. Yeah, I think just by the nature of the size of the movie and the to kind of uh the undertaking of the prosthetics uh and also just the the size of Guillermo's vision. And you know, that's a that's a big movie. They don't really make movies like this. anymore, you know.

That makes total sense. Let's talk about the prosthetics a little bit. How long were you in Makeup for the Full prosthetics? I mean it would it would it would depend. When when he was um Freshly minted and newborn, you know, head-to-toe sort of sculpture.

It was 10 or 11 hours, depending on. You know, how much we were moving or whatnot. And then when he's in. His coat. And you can sort of just see this section of his body, it's about five to six hours.

Only five to six hours. Yeah, which was a treat. That was like, okay, thank God, it's a short day. Guillermo said that he wanted you to push past your breaking point. Do you feel yeah.

Do you feel like you did? Um No, I just I remember at one point. There was a there became a point in filming where I would just stare at him. Because I was pretty non-verbal the whole time we were filming and Guymo and I were the only we would stay on set the whole time.

So if there was a lunch break or something, the pair of us would be on set, and I would just stare at him. And he looked back at me one time and he said, He's like, I'll let you know when you can break. Um And it actually, it was like a pat on the back, you know, I knew that I was submitting myself to him and I could trust him and he did. And it was when the film was over, you know. But it was a great, it was a great thing to hear, I guess.

Does that mean that you were in the creature's mindset and character that whole time?

Well for me when I'm shooting a movie I feel like This whole sort of idea of method and the conversation around it, I think, is so skewed and butchered. Because If you're making a film For for me, the way that I create uh Your whole 24 hours of your day is about the film. Everything you do is about the film. You eat for the film, you sleep for the film, you talk about the film, you dream about the film, you take in media that has to do with the film or music or art. For me filmmaking is a uh and acting is a an all-consuming process.

You know, you can't like moonlight. In the movie, you know.

So you don't turn it on and off. When you were in Frankenstein, you were in Frankenstein. No, yeah, yeah. You don't turn it off. And nor would I want to because You have six months to play with one of the greatest artists of the last century.

um six months to play Frankenstein's Creature. six months to be around castles and fire and monsters and beauty and pain and all these things. I mean, that's the world that I Want to live in, you know, that that to me is the most that's much more exciting than sitting in traffic and you know, having to fill your car up. Kind of thing. Those mundane things.

Yeah, which are also beautiful in their own way. Were there times that you would stop and say, oh my goodness, that's. Guillermo del Toro. Like, I'm here working with him. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, every day when I came to SEP, no matter how.

sort of exhausting or rigorous the the process of the make-up was. When you come through the doors. Of the studio, and he'd be sitting there sketching something in a notepad, and he'd look up at you, and he'd say, My friend. and then you'd just get this rush of energy because you realise you were playing with the greats, you know. That's really good.

You got the part after another actor. Dropped out. Was it a good thing to not have a lot of time to mull it over? I mean, it's the only reality that I know is the sort of brief one. But.

I think in hindsight, I suppose it was probably helpful that I didn't have. I mean, 'cause I got the I got the call. to play the part. They were nine weeks out from production. and I still had five weeks to go on a limited series in Australia.

So then I had about four weeks to get ready, so the process was really active and all-consuming. And if it didn't work, I had to throw it away, or I had to sort of leave a lot of question marks on the screenplay. Whereas if I'd had a year, because the thing I'd done before I'd had a year to prep it. Um If I'd had a year on Frankenstein, I'm sure I would have. you know, going too far down A path that didn't make any sense, or get stuck on some kind of physicality that didn't feel organic or real or human, or I would have.

tried to do something or attempted to sort of force something into the movie. Um which would have been futile because Kiamo said early on to us You know You were born to play this part. This part is made for you. and the movie is going to tell us what it wants and doesn't want. And he said that at the start of the film, which made absolutely no sense at all, because you're like, okay, I understand that, but I really also want to, you know, I want to do something here, and I want to.

I want to serve you. But he was right. The film spat out what it didn't need and it took what worked and it was all sort of organic and the movie was in conversation with itself as it was happening.

So the four weeks was perfect, I think, to be able to. to sort of just uh run toward the edge and just leap off of it and throw yourself into the abyss. You know, if I had more time, I might have stopped and had a look down and seen how far the fall was, you know. Instead you could just leap. Yeah, you could just jump, you know.

It looks from the outside like you had this trajectory that just went di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di. But for you, were there times when you thought maybe this career isn't for me? Never. No, never, never. I've I've been on this on a single track.

Seriously, since 15 years old. 365 days a year, however many hours I'm awake in the day, the hours I'm asleep, my brain has been consumed by. acting and movies and actors and storytelling and drama and Uh I'm uh I'm sort of entirely consumed by uh the craft of acting and business that is the movies and and it hasn't waned yet which I'm really really happy about. Did you have to struggle a little bit in the beginning? I mean it's relative.

You know, um when I look back at it now when I you know a few weeks ago It was the eight-year anniversary from my first film coming out in Australia, which I played a a bit part in. And eight years is not a very long time to be sort of sitting here talking to you in Los Angeles. But at the time, as it was happening when I first, when I finished my first. Films. uh the the Kiss and Booth movies and I moved.

I went so I've I moved from Making From Australia, I was in drama school. and then I had to leave when I booked the kissing booth. film And I flew to South Africa, shot those movies, and then with those bags I moved to LA. Straight from South Africa to LA. From the set.

And I'm still in the same the same bags essentially. I never went back home again, so I was just 18 or 19 at the time. And at that time, when I first moved to LA and it was pilot season, and you know, we were all Sleeping on couches and doing that whole thing. There was, you know. There was, you know, agonising years, it felt like, of you know, wondering if you were going to be out of, if it was going to happen or, you know, your visa's running out, your money's running out, all those kind of things which are difficult.

But um But in hindsight, I think it would be a bit remiss of me to say that I had a difficult Path. Obviously, relatively, everyone's journey is their own thing, and you see it in your own way, but. If I just look at the time that it's taken, it is I've been incredibly blessed to be in the place I'm in now making the movies that I'm making. Yeah. Yeah, eight years is not a super long time.

It's not, no, not in the scheme of things. When Nate came along, when Euphoria came along. Did you struggle at all with this kind of unlikable character. No, he wasn't unlikable. To me, really, it was a job.

First of all, I was like, I'm about to make a T V series for HBO. which isn't just television, you know. It was partnered with A24, which at the time was like, I mean, still exploding, but like it was. Fresh, fresh exploding. Like that was where cinema was being made in that time period.

It was just so exciting. to um to be given the antagonist in this piece. and uh you know and to be trusted with it and And he grew and developed so much. You know, the scenes that I auditioned with were quite, you know, this generic. jock, you know, type kind of guy and As Sam and I met, it felt like he kind of expanded and became this really interesting, complex human being.

You know, we get to see all the abuse that he's endured in his life. You get to see what made the apple go bad. That as an actor is that's sort of what you look for in a character. You know, you look for those redeeming elements to show like. why somebody is horrible or why somebody is cruel.

You know, we're not as um We're not as base as our actions. You know, there's uh There's always a story behind everything.

So, Nate for me was also my first kind of. invitation into a a project that had a multi-layered character and characters That people had thought about, and teenagers that, you know, these teenage characters that had been given respect and they weren't just completely sexualized, they were. Given thoughts and feelings, and that.

So it felt like a really special thing to be a part of. Makes sense, complexity. What's it like coming back to Nate after doing? other projects. It was It was so much fun.

Um You know, because you have this five or six year gap that you have to consider and think about his life. But for me, I kind of took a similar ethos to how I was shooting Frankenstein. I promised myself I wouldn't think about it too much and I would just sort of Lay myself at Sam Levinson's feet and just sort of do what he asked. And I think we ended up finding something that was. exciting and and different because the idea of playing the the same thing over and over again as a television trope, you know, it's Kind of feels like dying a little bit.

So hopefully it's exciting. I'm nervous to talk about it because I haven't seen it. I totally get it, yeah. And you also don't want to give away too much. I get that.

I couldn't give anything away if I tried. It's like, you know, it's a secret society over there. Yeah. Are you the same way with him as you were with Frankenstein that you dive fully in? to need?

Yeah, yeah. When I I mean the first uh The first two seasons That was my uh You know, nothing existed ex except shooting shooting euphoria and and playing Nate, so. But even the kissing booth is the same way I remember fighting with the arguing with the studio or the director because. I had the paperback of the kissing booth. And I had highlighted all the times, I was like, he's smoking a cigarette.

I said, why do I not have a cigarette? I said, well, we can't have cigarettes for the young audience and I was like, right. But he's smoking a cigarette. The character smokes a cigarette. And I remember fighting over this cigarette like it was like his absolute truth, you know.

So I've had the same sort of process. my whole life. It's um all consuming and You know. And you really want to be the cat, you dive in. Yeah, to the extent that you can be.

Or if that's just like some. state that you convince yourself of I'm not sure but Uh yeah, partly because of nerves. Like you I have to believe myself. Before, I think, you know, before the audience does, so to even get to set and stand in front of a 400-people crew and In this little costume, and you know, put a voice on, I have to really, really believe it.

So, that requires like a lot of time. with myself, you know, beforehand and sort of trying to live in the character and then there's just the enjoyment element of it, you know. being able to get lost in something. being able to go searching with a character. You know, um finding out about yourself through a character, finding out about the world.

And at the very least, it'll lead you to like a whole sort of subsection of literature that you didn't know about before you started the research process. You know, you'll always, there's so much to be. taken from it. I've I've been thinking a lot. recently about magpies.

You know, the birds and bower birds, and that's what I like in the process, too. It's like you're building this brand new nest. And you're kind of just flying around the place, picking up the shiny things, picking up food, you know, picking up string, and then you take it all back to your nest and you sort of. make a pretty little thing that you like, you know, and then I guess you you give it to the to the world. That's a great visual analogy too.

Picture a magpie when you think of me acting. Yes, picture a magpie when you think of me acting. Of course. Thank you. We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview after this break.

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So, you talked about learning about yourself. What did you learn about yourself with Frankenstein? Or discover about yourself, I think is the word you use. What do you discover about yourself with Frankenstein? For me, less discovery and more.

It felt like I was liberating something. It felt like Like Taking something out that was wedged in my rib, or something like that. I felt like at the end of the film I could stand taller. and I was more confident in the way that I that I spoke about uh my work and and and what I want from the work. But I think that's mostly less to do with playing the character and more to do with working with Guillermo del Toro.

You hear these stories about him, but he is an endless well. Of divine inspiration. I mean, everything that he says, everything that comes out of his mouth is considered. and with care for people and for art and for beauty and for emotion. And he's definitely made me um He's He's sort of I don't know I don't know how to explain it.

I don't know. But um yeah, I just got inspired playing it I suppose. I don't know. But self-discovery, I don't know. Yeah.

Uh Now that was explained pretty well, that something came out of you. Have done several characters that loom large in people's minds. And real life, in Priscilla, you played Elvis. I forgot about it. You forgot it.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah. How did you find your way into it? And I know the process is hard for you, so I'm trying to ask it in a way. But yeah.

Was there something that was super difficult to master that you felt like you had to work on? I think Oh. Playing over as Presley was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. on screen. Just in terms of A few things.

The first thing being It was Sophia Coppola.

So in terms of people that you revere as a cinema lover and As someone who loves movies, she's right at the she's not even at the Top of the list, she's like at the top of her own list. off to the side. She's entirely one of a kind, so for me Having spent so many years Barking on about how I wanted to work with filmmakers and how I wanted to make movies that mattered and I wanted to be a part of cinema. You know, I felt like I was knocking on the door of Hollywood, like, please take me seriously. And um Then they finally They answered and gave it to me and I was like, oh no.

No, no, Sophia Cobla. And she wants me to play Elvis Presley.

Okay, goodness gracious. It couldn't just be like. A guy that the heroine loves or something. I would have loved to just play the guy, but no, it had to be Elvis Presley. And it was the same kind of thing.

It was just run towards the cliff edge and jump off. And I thought to myself, If I fall. I'll fall in the greatest white Jumpsuit that the world has ever seen. I'll fall as Elvis Presley and I'll fall at the feet of Sophia Coppola. which is not a bad place to uh to end up.

So everything about that was challenging, the physicality. the musicality, because I don't have a musical bone in my body. Um you know um trying to Portray the spirit of Elvis without looking like you're doing a Vegas caricature, all these things and I remember emailing Sophia. And I said, you know, I think I'm going to need some prosthetics on my nose, I'm going to need this on my lips. And then she's like, no, I think you'll be fine.

was all she said back. She's like, I think you're gonna be fine. Van Emperor's like. I can't really argue with that. And then, yeah, never heard from her until we started shooting again and came out for the camera tests and she was like, wow.

She's like, it's really like Elvis. And somehow, through, I think like, you know. sheer determination and will. I I came out with something that I that I felt was um believable and authentic to the spirit of Elvis. Alvis Presley and And then and then luckily people en enjoyed the film and That was nice, but it was really, it was a big sort of departure from myself, I think.

And kind of a be careful what you wish for, because boom. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you pulled it off. Hopefully.

Yeah. No prosthetics needed. No, no prosthetics needed. And then you went all in on the prosthetics. And then we went the whole way with the prosthetics.

Yeah, but again, like. I can work as hard as I want. In my attic, you know, I can do as much work as I want, I can do as many voices, I can internalize it and make it real, but none of it's real without the filmmakers that I work with, and I think that's. the biggest part about uh you know, the biggest thing for me that's help get these sort of intense characters or believable characters across the line. It's the frames that they occupy, it's the score that runs behind them, it's the you know the intricately detailed costumes.

You know, there's so many people's work. transports the character that I sort of generate. into reality. I think. And and and and you get that when you work with like truly phenomenal film makers, you know.

Yeah, it's so true. There's so many people working together. You know, people say it's like a miracle when it all comes together. Yeah, 'cause it's a totally collaborative uh Effort to put these things on screens and to have them, you know, to create worlds that don't exist anymore, particularly, you know, be it that era, Graceland, or. you know, or Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights, as well, you know.

Let's talk Wuthering Heights. Frankenstein looms large in literary minds. the creature, I should say, as does Heathcliff. Were you apprehensive about taking on that role that so many people know and love? No, no, not at all.

I was so excited. Hand move for now. Road workers on soapbox. Uh she just texted me one day. Um Maybe two years ago, now, I'm not sure.

And she just said, Do you do you want to play Heathcliff? And I said yeah. And then two weeks later there was a screenplay in my in my mail and And then I was playing Heathcliff. But no, I wasn't really nervous or worried, because to be completely honest with you, I, knowing Emerald very well, I knew how much This particular book meant to her.

So for me, it was just an honor to be able to be a part of her vision for the movie that she had in mind. And how does it work with you? Can you leave? a character behind? Like were you able to leave the creature behind to become Heathcliff or does some of that stay with you?

I think, you know, I took the the helpful parts from the creature and Put them into Heathcliff, but that's the same with anything. I think it's like all life experience. You can't really choose what you take and. And don't take sometimes, you know.

So things linger, some things lag, some things you leave behind, some things might come out in five years from now, I'm not sure. But the lucky thing for me was just research-wise. Um The creature learns how to speak from David Bradley, who's a Yorkshire man. from Northern England. And So the edges of his accent in Frankenstein, when he first starts talking before he has more encounters with Victor, who has RP who has an RP accent, which is a heightened English accent, his early accent is closer to northern than sort of regular English.

And Heathcliff's accent is exclusively Yorkshire.

So I kind of already started rounding my mouth playing the creature to get the the voice for Heathcliff. And then I guess there's just this in both texts. They're kind of both Byronic Anti-heroes. Heathcliff is particularly an anti-hero, but either way, both of them are. deeply romantic, um Gothic characters.

A lot of the stimulus, a lot of the art, a lot of the the the music and um you know, uh, composers I was listening to and things like that, they informed The The creature that did inform the creature also informed the world of Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights as a whole. That's cool. That there's a parallel there. I'm not sure that people would normally draw that between Frankenstein's Creed and the Mm. No, but my hope is that both films coming out so soon to each other, they do sort of work as a companion piece because even in terms of tactile real-life filmmaking.

Um you know like uh Limited CGI, real hand-built sets, woven fabric costumes. Uh you know, um uh you know real handmade cinema. Both of these films are that, and you can see the through line in both of them as a double feature.

So, hopefully, it gives people something sumptuous and real to watch.

So, you were with your mom when you heard that you got nominated for an opposite. How'd that go? I mean, it was particularly beautiful because this is very dramatic, but I remember. And any actor that says that you haven't done this is a liar. But you would practice.

Your Academy Awards speech when you were young, formulating the dream. And I remember being Fifteen or sixteen. doing it. And I remember I would tear up because I thought, you know mum's not going to get to see this. Um And the day that I got nominated, I mum was with me and I realized, you know, mum's going to get to see All of this.

She's going to get to see all the spoils of her work, all the time and love that she invested. She gets to. we get to share it now. Um so that's really exciting and so being with her was the culmination of a A lifelong dream. You know, it was the result of that.

So we were giddy all day. We were kind of in a. We're in a fugue state, just sort of bumping into the coffee table, walking around, not sure what to do with ourselves. That's wonderful. And she actually kind of told you, right?

She came in with the phone? She did, yeah, yeah. I had managed to put it out of my mind and I was asleep. Um And she wasn't. She had set her alarms and everything like that, and then she had.

my I think my agent called her and she came running up the stairs and, you know, burst into my bedroom and and told me I'd been nominated, which was the best way to find out. That's beautiful. Yeah, it was really nice. Do you remember that speech that you made up when you were 15 years old? You know, it's so funny because the one I made up at 15 in my head was so good and it was so authentic and it was from the heart.

And now if I even begin to think of anything like that, I just, all I can hear is cheers.

So hopefully I can, you know, think of it. Are you allowing yourself to think about? Oscar Knight at all? No, because for I mean I just feel like I'm um I'm already living in a dream, you know. I have.

I have a movie coming out in cinemas at Warner Bros. Pitchers, it's been a dream of mine to have a Warner Brothers movie, you know, because you know the title card when it comes up. That's been a dream of mine. forever. And you know, I I I just have a movie in the Cam with Ridley Scott.

You know, I made a movie with Guillermo del Toro. Uh for me I've like Alright. All I can think about is, I can't believe that I'm in the movies, you know, and I'm really in the movies in the way that I dreamt of it.

So I'm kind of just. The only thing I can feel now is He's just like a uh an overwhelming tide of of of gratefulness, I guess. Is that even a word cratefulness? Can you go out in public and not be noticed? You can.

Like you can put on because I was wondering because of your stature if it's like harder for you to not be noticed. I have a pretty strong refusal to um to lose my life. To um To To an industry. You know, I'm I consider myself an actor and just an actor. And So for me life kind of goes on outside of the set and outside of these lights and cameras and things.

Yeah, I don't I don't I don't have too much trouble in the world. That's good.

So if there are cameras or whatever, you do just kind of ignore it and do what you need to do? I don't know. I just don't really think about it too much. It doesn't really play into my uh It doesn't really factor into my reality, you know. I have so much love in my life and and uh the relationships I have in my life are so present and real and and And I was raised in such a sort of authentic and true way.

You know, I feel I feel so deeply here that uh I don't know, like uh The The idea of of uh I don't know, like this industry and stuff, it's just It doesn't really factor into my day-to-day. And I feel like it seems to me that you've made a conscious decision to kind of not let that part of the industry, the fame machine, affect you. Like with your relationship with social media, you're not really on there a lot. I have no relationship with social media. My dream was to be an actor.

My dream was to play in the movies and You know, I'm uh I'm far too nervous to ask for more than that. And I've been given exactly what What I wanted, and I see it exactly how I dreamed it, and I live it how I dreamed it. Um So for me, that's about all I can handle. I know it's probably hard to narrow it down, but has there been a Pinch me moment. I think getting nominated for an Academy Award was.

I definitely loved K Rap and I was like, Yeah, you know, just sat there and crying like, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. No, but yeah, yeah. I mean the whole the whole I'll probably die and never quite believe that I was in the pictures, you know. That's how it feels still. Yeah.

Yeah, and I like it that way. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts.

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