Has the extreme thirst on the internet gone too far? Apparently it has for Jacob Elordi, star of Netflix’s The Kissing Booth and its recently released sequel. In a new interview, the 23-year-old actor explained that the attention on his body after The Kissing Booth came out in 2018 “really f**king bothered” him.
Elordi plays the film’s hot jock, Noah, who goes from being a bit of a bad boy womaniser to Elle’s smitten boyfriend by the end of the film.
“I trained extensively for the first film, because it said it in the script,” he explained with a laugh. “I was so terribly nervous that I wouldn’t be what the script wanted me to be.” Body image and body confidence is something that anyone can struggle with, and he’s right to share that men face that pressure too.
“At the time, I was super young and got thrown into a world where everyone wanted to talk about my body… it really f**king bothered me,” he says. “I don’t identify with that whatsoever. I was trying to prove myself and be known as an actor. It was so much working out and I hated every second of it.”
Thankfully, it seems like he’s in a much more comfortable place with his relationship to fitness and training now. “[The Kissing Booth] was all about sculpting and making sure I had this figure that I thought the character needed,” he explained. “Now, it’s more functional. I wanted to be a blank canvas and be more concerned with my health. I wanted to be able to walk and run with my grandkids when I’m eighty-something, you know? It’s more about being functional as opposed to actual aesthetics.”
“Let’s be honest—I have no interest in going to the beach and looking like The Rock,” he joked.
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