by Jacob Elordi has a long list of roles to his name. He broke out as the heartthrob in one of Netflix’s most popular movies of all time, The Kissing Booth, and won accolades for portraying the charming yet dangerous male lead on the HBO series Euphoria. He’s even performed as Elvis. He will soon be recognized as the Frankenstein monster and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.
He has experimented in dozens of genres, but none of his earlier work compares with his performance in the gloomy Prime Video miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North. He portrays Dorrigo Evans, an Australian soldier who is taken during World War II and made to labor on the Burma Death Railway. His memories of a previous love affair haunts him continuously, causing him to suffer unimaginably.
Elordi told Yahoo Entertainment that he wasn’t worried about the character’s mental struggle or the violence he would have to experience. It was compelling to him.
“Everyone who performs, in my opinion as an actor, is pulled to something that is so dissimilar from their personal experiences.” “You get all of that from this,” he said to Yahoo Entertainment. These are the kinds of things you want to immerse yourself in. You never want to feel like you’re merely going through the motions or phoning it in. I will feel like I have died creatively on that day.
Since he was “14 or 15 … before I even knew you could be an actor,” Elordi has desired to collaborate with filmmaker Justin Kurzel. Author Richard Flanagan’s “well-rounded character,” which was based on Flanagan’s own loved ones who lived through this “horrific time in Australian history,” touched him in the book from which the series was produced.
In order to prepare for the part, Elordi underwent a six-week boot camp in Sydney’s rainforest alongside the other cast members.
“You won’t have another experience like this in your life, so I need you to go all the way, and I promise you you’ll remember it forever,” he continued, recalling what Justin had told us early on. From the moment we met, we quickly embraced a mateship that united us. We were never alone when we entered the camps. All of our lads were present.
They looked after each other, but it was “grueling,” and they were “quite hungry a lot of the time.”
“We all generated a strength that I had never experienced before,” Elordi remarked. “I’m so glad I could share that experience with these boys, who were strangers at first.”
Though he previously made headlines for speaking so casually about getting into character as Elvis for 2023’s Priscilla—eating a pound of bacon every day and only briefly studying his accent — he said he “relished the opportunity” to immerse himself in his character in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. During the filming process, he enters a state of unconsciousness.
Elordi stated, “You have a limited amount of time to … be this other person.” “I kind of do live my life while I’m playing anything, and I mean it in the greatest possible manner. I live every waking moment in that kind of space as a result of my obsession with the entire thing.”
“I have these blanks in my memory of the time when I was shooting from the start to the end because I’m trying to remember what happened when I made something,” he continued.
Even if Elordi’s filmography highlights the severity of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, romance is still a crucial element since violent scenes are intercut with recollections of his character’s romance with his uncle’s wife, Amy (Odessa Young).
Amy cuts her leg and begins to bleed in a field in one of the most memorable love scenes. Dorrigo tastes the blood as he kisses her leg. According to Elordi, it shows a “really quite powerful” and “interesting” side to their relationship.
Elordi described it as “this incredibly primal act … the act of devouring someone wholly.” Something about it is taboo, but I guess that’s what makes it real. The contrast between its tenderness and carnality makes sense, so you’re not surprised when you see it.
According to Elordi, the “summer of love” scenes were filmed first, followed by the conflict.
On a different set, you might start with a death camp and then travel to Sydney to film a romantic moment. Justin made a significant effort to allocate time and space to ensure we could fully enjoy the event.
You can now watch all five of The Narrow Road to the Deep North episodes on Prime Video.
