Ooh! Biting the hand! Or… spiting the fans??
Jacob Elordi is the latest celeb to hit a new level of stardom — and immediately burn the bridges leading back to the fans who got him there.
The Euphoria star has slowly been carving out a place for himself in Hollywood, usually playing a sexy but sketchy bad boy type character, but in higher and higher profile projects. The most recent? The acclaimed Priscilla, Sofia Coppola‘s film adaptation of Priscilla Presley‘s memoir about her complicated relationship with Elvis. The role of the King was naturally a coveted one once again, having just scored Austin Butler an Oscar nomination last year. Clearly Jacob reckons this will be his springboard to more serious projects — because we can’t remember the last time we saw someone quicker to badmouth their earlier work!
The Aussie actor has implied before that he maybe cared more than those around him about making the movies more “real” — but he’s never come out swinging against The Kissing Booth franchise like he does in this GQ interview!
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In the mag’s Men of the Year issue, he blasts the teen rom com films, based on Beth Reekles‘ 2012 novel, saying:
“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.”
They sure were an escape. For a lot of young women! We can’t help but wonder how those girls, who are growing with him as an audience, will feel about him being so dismissive of their guilty pleasure series!
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For those who don’t know, the Kissing Booth movies are your classic high school drama — girl falls for her BFF’s hot older brother but doesn’t want to ruin her friendship — told in a story that revolves around the antiquated idea of a kissing booth. That isn’t just a pre-COVID idea, it’s like a pre-sexual revolution idea! LOLz!
Even relative to other YA rom coms on Netflix, the Kissing Booth series got particularly scathing reviews from critics. So we get why Mr. Soon-To-Be-Seen-In-Emerald-Fennell’s-Saltburn would want to distance himself.
But the series was also his big break, the first noteworthy Hollywood project he was cast in, allowing him to move to Los Angeles from Down Under in the first place. It’s kind of a bad look to crap on them now. Right? Jacob doesn’t think so. He defended dragging his past projects against critics who’ve called him “pretentious” for doing so, saying:
“How is caring about your output pretentious? 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?”
It’s an intriguing thought. If you really think something is soulless and without merit, we guess it’s fair to say so. Though… you did that movie, man. And it wasn’t that long ago. You could have held out for something you believed in a bit more if you were such a devoted artist. Right?
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Well, he’s done with being a corporate Hollywood sellout now. He declares in the magazine:
“My ‘one for them,’ I’ve done it.”
He says that “one for you, one for them” mentality is “a trap” 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.”
A “fine dance” is not what we’d say the 26-year-old is doing right now. A fine dance would be recognizing that even the most junk food of movies are someone’s jam, maybe someone’s guilty pleasure, maybe their childhood fave? And try not to diminish those people’s feelings even if you prefer what you’re working on now?
A fine dance would be thinking about the fact that filmmakers thinking of casting him might now wonder if he’ll turn around and trash-talk their project if it gets bad reviews.
What do YOU think, Perezcious readers? Is Jacob being pretentious? Self-righteous? Snobby? Or is he right about those particular movies being trash? Let us know what YOU think in the comments!
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