Jacob Elordi slams ‘Kissing Booth’ franchise as ‘ridiculous’: You’re ‘dead inside’
Jacob Elordi is scorching the screen this month in the hot dramas “Priscilla” and “Saltburn.”
But he’s also burning some of his past, less prestigious work at the same time.
In December’s Men of The Year issue of GQ, for which the 26-year-old Aussie actor graces the cover, Elordi told the magazine that his “Kissing Booth” films on Netflix were “ridiculous movies” and made him feel “dead inside.”
“I didn’t want to make those movies before I made those movies,” he said of the wildly popular franchise. “Those movies are ridiculous. They’re not universal. They’re an escape.”
The star of HBO’s “Euphoria” went on to talk about the old “one for them, one for me” mantra, discussing how he balances more artful projects with the blockbusters Hollywood thrives on.
“That one’s a trap as well. Because it can become 15 for them, none for you. You have no original ideas and you’re dead inside. So it’s a fine dance … My ‘one for them,’ I’ve done it.”
The actor stands by his insistence on high stands, and is shocked when people bristle at it.
“How is caring about your output pretentious?” Elordi asked. “But not caring, and knowingly feeding people s – – t, knowing that you’re making money off of people’s time, which is literally the most valuable thing that they have. How is that the cool thing?”
Elordi dated his “Kissing Booth” co-star Joey King from 2017 to 2018.
“It was such an interesting experience meeting your boyfriend on-set because you spend so much time together and become so close so fast,” she told Bello magazine in 2018. “We were spending 17 hours a day together, and all of us would hang out after work and watch movies together and stuff. It was great.”
King, 24, went on to marry director Steven Piet in September. Elordi, for his part, briefly dated his “Euphoria” co-star Zendaya and is currently linked to Olivia Jade Giannulli.
In Sofia Coppola’s film “Priscilla,” Elordi plays the daunting role of Elvis Presley — just one year after Austin Butler was Oscar-nominated for the same part in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.”
“I don’t want to tell the same story over, especially because he did such a fine job of portraying this man,” Elordi told GQ.
In The Post’s review of “Priscilla,” critic Johnny Oleksinski praised Elordi, saying, “His Presley is a fleshed-out, complex, insecure person, and the actor is proving himself a formidable leading man.”
And a formidable eater. To play the King, the fit actor had to gain a lot of weight.
“It was the first time in my life that I ever had a gut,” he told GQ.
“Bacon. It was about a pound of bacon every day. And then when I’d go to Canada [where ‘Priscilla’ was largely filmed] it was poutine and hamburgers … It’s really my pleasure. I could order Uber Eats and be like, ‘Should I get that burger after I’ve just had Italian? Yeah. Yeah, I will.’ ”
