The one movie guaranteed to turn Jacob Elordi into an emotional wreck: “I just broke down”
Don’t mistake Jacob Elordi for another generic heartthrob; the Euphoria star has proven himself to be a deeply thoughtful, dramatic actor with an interest in working with great directors, such that, even in the midst of shooting one of his most anticipated films to date, he made time to watch a definitive classic.
Euphoria was initially marketed as a star vehicle for Zendaya, but the controversial HBO show quickly introduced Elordi as one of the most exciting leading men of his generation. While it would have been easy for him to use his newfound popularity as a means to star in generic romantic comedies or suit up to play a character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he’s admirably made the type of thoughtful career choices that mirror great British actors like Ralph Fiennes or Gary Oldman.
It was only a year after Austin Butler became a superstar with his role in Elvis that Ellordi played a much more wounded, intense version of the ‘King of Rock’n’Roll’ in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, which told the story of Elvis Presley from the perspective of his first wife, the titular Priscilla, played by Cailee Spaeny. He followed it up with a charismatic performance in Emerald Fennell’s controversial class satire Saltburn, and later played a younger version of Richard Gere’s character in the brilliant but underseen historical drama Oh, Canada from writer/director Paul Schrader.
Despite being heralded for his physical attractiveness, his most acclaimed role to date was one in which he was nearly unrecognisable: there have been countless adaptations of Frankenstein, but Guillermo del Toro’s stunning 2025 version gave Elordi the freedom to breathe life and emotion into the creature in a way that had never been seen before. It has already earned him several major accolades, making it not unlikely that he could end up with an Academy Award nomination (or even win) in the next few months.
Alongside this, Elordi is about to be in the single biggest project of his career, reuniting with Fennell for her adaption of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a project that has already been surrounded by controversy.
While the expectations facing Elordi for playing the character of Heathcliff would certainly be intense, he told W Magazine that he was able to retreat from the role by watching Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, a film that he revealed made him cry more than any other.
Sense and Sensibility is often regarded as one of the greatest Jane Austen adaptations of all time, which is no small feat when considering the many classics that her work has inspired, and while it seemed unusual that Chinese director Lee was brought in to direct a story set in late 18-century England, he brought a degree of sensitivity and beauty that only emphasised the great performances by Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Kate Winslet in one of her breakout roles.
A new version of it starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and George MacKay is set to hit theatres in the fall, but it will be hard for it to contend with the reputation of the original that Elordi loves so much. At least with Wuthering Heights, there hasn’t been a definitive previous actor who embodied Heathcliff so perfectly that it would be hard for his interpretation of the role to compare.
