In Euphoria, Nate (played by Jacob Elordi) is cruel, aggressive, and sexually exploitative. His abusive, rarely-reprimanded behaviour towards girlfriend Maddy (Alexa Demie) and classmate Jules (Hunter Schafer) positioned the character as a totem of white privilege, with online pundits quick to call out his “toxic masculinity”.
Throughout the first series, his good looks and gym-honed, imposing body is used as a vehicle for narcissism and some kind of genetically-entitled machismo. Yet Elordi has previously cautioned of how uncomfortable it makes him feel when fans of the show fawn over Nate. “It's so scary when you read that stuff. It’s bad, it’s so bad,” he said earlier this year. The actor has since expanded on those comments, speaking out on how objectified he has felt working in Hollywood more generally. “You have all sorts of aged people around the world only talking about what you look like," he said in an interview with Men’s Health.
“I don’t think it’s really a conversation that people have in regards to men,” he continued, referring to instances where he’ll be “getting changed or something, and someone’s like, ‘Oooaaah, would you look?,’” before adding, “Can you imagine if I said to a woman, ‘Daaaaamn, look at your waist!’”. “I would never do that,” he said. “But I think people see it on their screens, so they think it’s okay.” He acknowledges that it’s not something that necessarily keeps him up at night, but he finds the fixation on his looks troubling and an obstacle to being taken seriously as an actor.
In a 2020 conversation with the same magazine he spoke of how much he hated the attention paid towards his body, rather than his acting in The Kissing Booth. “I was super young and got thrown into a world where everyone wanted to talk about my body… It really fucking bothered me,” he said. “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.” For now, it’s unclear as to how Nate’s character will develop in series two of Euphoria, with details surrounding the show kept unsurprisingly scant. But check out the trailer here before the show drops in the new year.
