Latest news with #Elordi
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
On Swift Horses star Diego Calva on playing Jacob Elordi's on-screen boyfriend and his mental health journey
'Being naked around Jacob Elordi is intimidating!' declares Diego Calva with an infectious giggle, describing his co-star in On Swift Horses. We get it: the pair spend much of this new 1950s-set romance rolling around in matching tighty-whities. 'He's like a fucking god!' Calva adds. 'He's too perfect!' Cue more infectious giggling. Coming from the beautiful with a capital 'B' man whose mesmeric face was the best thing about 2022's Babylon, such modesty is a charming quality. (In a wild turn of events, I bump into Elordi in a London pub that very night, and the Euphoria star is naturally over the moon to learn his friend has landed an Attitude cover.) Calva then reveals how he bonded with Elordi. 'He plays Pokémon. He was playing it on Nintendo Switch. I'd just finished the new game three weeks before. That was the icebreaker: 'How do you catch this Pokémon?' We just started playing!' In On Swift Horses, Calva plays card shark Henry, who starts a passionate affair with drifter and hustler Julius (Elordi). (Rounding out the cast is Warfare's Will Poulter as Julius's strapping, all-American brother Lee, and Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones as Lee's secretly queer wife, Muriel.) Calva was Golden Globe-nominated for his role in Babylon as Hollywood exec Manny, the only man wonderful enough to (briefly) tame Margot Robbie's dazzling 20s starlet Nellie. Who tames who in On Swift Horses is up for debate. 'What I can say is: Hollywood likes me in a period movie, kissing Australian people!' Calva points out. Quite. News of Margot Robbie and Elordi playing tortured lovers in a new take on Wuthering Heights is 'funny' to Calva. 'Doing Horses, Jacob asked me a lot about Margot,' he says. 'Margot's the queen of Australia, and now we have a new king. … I feel pretty lucky — I've kissed both!' This rapidly rising star has form for cheeky quotes. Ever since he teased On Swift Horses' 'pretty hot' sex scenes in a Variety interview in 2023 — and after Barry Keoghan raised the stakes with his bath-drinking revelry opposite Elordi in 2023's Saltburn — the thirst for this film has been real. Battle-hardened by the explicit nature of Euphoria, The White Lotus et al, this viewer went in expecting… Well, it's partly set in Las Vegas, land of Showgirls. Strip poker at least? What I was not expecting was a central dynamic of Heartstopper-level sweetness and a love story, based on the novel of the same name by Shannon Pufahl, that snaps at the heels of Brokeback Mountain and Call Me by Your Name. 'It's like when you fall in love with your first love when you're eight,' says Calva. 'You fall in love with your cousin or your teacher. Something really sweet, platonic, in a way. …When they're inside the hotel room, in their world, because they have to hide from the actual world — they're kids.' It's strange to think that their love, in 1950s America, is illegal; stranger still to think homosexuality was only effectively legalised in America in 2003, when the Supreme Court struck down all remaining state sodomy laws in the landmark Lawrence v. Texas case. (Yes, that recently.) As such, the sex scenes are pointedly there, in flip-flopping abundance, but they're tasteful. The best, in which Julius pins Henry against a mirror, is shot from the shoulders up: the sight of these two handsome faces, reflected into four, is almost more male beauty than the camera can bear. 'It's hard not to do a hot scene with Jacob shirtless!' says Calva, before adding: 'Dan [Minahan], the director, is such a gentleman. He told us: 'I don't want to provoke the audience. This is about actual love. I don't want a classic story of tragedy around these queer characters and then they have kinky sex — no, no, no. They're two sweet guys who really fall in love.'' Calva's protective of them. 'Henry is wilder and more dangerous in the streets,' he adds. 'But with Julius, he's very tender.' Calva is Zooming with me from Istanbul, Turkey, a country gripped by political instability. Within days, thousands march in protest over the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, frontrunner in the 2028 presidential race and challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which is surely an attempt to crush democratic opposition. 'I've seen groups of people — they're trying to change stuff, I support them,' says Calva from his hotel lobby, energised. Turkey is as good an example as any as to why films like On Swift Horses are vital — that's if it's even screened there. Authorities in Istanbul banned a 2024 screening of Daniel Craig's Queer, after all, while Pride has been banned in Turkey since 2015. 'Now I'm here, the movie's a reminder that we still have a lot of jobs to do,' says Calva. 'A reminder that it was not a long time ago that this was forbidden all over the world. … It's crazy there are [still] places, countries, chasing queer people.' Watching Calva's two biggest films back to back is another reminder that progress, like sexual liberation, is more of a pendulum swing than a straight line. Babylon depicts roaring 20s Hollywood shifting from silent film to talkies in what was a decade of frenetic change, decadent excess and sexual debauchery, immortalised in a staggeringly drawn-out, swinging-from-the-chandeliers mass orgy scene where anything goes. (Coked-up watersports? You got it). In contrast, '50s America in On Swift Horses, with its low hemlines and white picket fences, seems positively draconian — you can almost feel the asphyxiation of nuclear family ideals as post-Second World War, post-Korean War society grasps for stability. 'It's crazy, no?' says Calva of the contrast. 'The pioneers of moviemaking in the wild, crazy '20s, there was a little more freedom. Then we started to put in a lot of rules. And after the Korean War, a lot of young guys came from the army having realised they're gay, and now they don't have a place to be.' LGBTQ+ women had it no better, of course, as On Swift Horses illustrates so effectively with what might be a film first: a narrative split equally between a queer man and woman who are not a couple. Muriel's first girl-on-girl kiss is interrupted by a police raid on a queer bar; later, she jitterbugs in her underwear in the privacy of her lover's home, an adorably innocent moment laced with the threat of discovery. Babylon, meanwhile, has a sapphic sub-plot involving Chinese-American cabaret-singer Lady Fay (Li Jun Li) saving the life of Nellie by sucking snake venom from her neck — a gasp-inducing scene prompting a glass-closet affair and tabloid sensation. 'We're not used to talking about lesbians in film,' offers Calva. 'Not that much. There's a lot of fabric to cut, a lot of stories to tell.' […] Discussing the personal impact of playing queer characters, and the questions they've raised, Calva explains: 'Every time I've played a character, I keep something. Not a prop, not part of the costume — something about their universe, their hearts. … I played a Columbian character, for example. Now I'm a really, really big salsa fan, and learnt about the political situation in '90s Columbia. 'So, playing Henry, of course, there's something about being queer… And I'm playing an immigrant. I realised I've felt what it is to be hiding as an immigrant, being chased, being judged for the colour of my skin. … It's not about 'queer Mexican'. It's about the universe. What can you find, and keep, about the character? Then the conversation could turn to some [other] place. What is being straight? What is being queer? What's a straight or queer character? For me, it's actually the coolest part of my profession. I'm able to be a lot of different people for a month, for three months, and I'm going to be a little part of those characters for the rest of my life. And I'll defend that statement always.' To read the rest of this feature, check out issue 364 of Attitude magazine is , and alongside 15 years of back issues on the free . The post On Swift Horses star Diego Calva on playing Jacob Elordi's on-screen boyfriend and his mental health journey appeared first on Attitude.
Daily Mail
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Olivia Jade models sexy backless dress as she hits party ALONE amid Jacob Elordi split rumors
Olivia Jade Giannulli turned heads as she arrived at a glamorous event in Miami on Thursday evening. The influencer, 25, who goes professionally by Olivia Jade, looked very much like her mother, actress Lori Loughlin, 60, as she showcased her fit form in a little black dress with a plunging back at the David Yurman after party celebrating the opening of his Miami store opening. The social media personality kept her accessories simple, wearing one of the jeweler's long gold chains down her back and a pair of gold hoop earrings. Olivia displayed her toned legs in a pair of strappy open toe heels. Her makeup was natural looking with a neutral red lip and her long, blonde locks were styled in a loose updo. The model has been enjoying time on a solo trip to the South Florida area, sparking rumors there might be some trouble between her and longtime boyfriend Jacob Elordi, 27. The Australian actor recently wrapped work on the upcoming romantic drama Wuthering Heights, with Margot Robbie and directed by Emerald Fennel. Elordi stars as the dark and moody Heathcliff. 'The performances from everyone — it's breathtaking,' he told Deadline. 'It's an incredible romance. It's a true epic. It's visually beautiful. The script is beautiful. The costumes are incredible.' The Euphoria star has been promoting his series The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Elordi stars as doctor taken prisoner by the Japanese in World War II who is forced to help build a railway in Burma. To accurately portray a prisoner of war, the hunky star lost about 20 pounds. 'We had six weeks to shed all the weight and we got to do it together' he told ETalk about the experience with his fellow castmates. The studio made sure they did it safely. 'We had a great crew of nutritionists and trainers around us,' adding that the experience was 'more psychological than physical.' He said the diet helped put him in 'the headspace' to portray the grim conditions faced by prisoners of war. The five-part series is based on the novel by Richard Flannigan. The Narrow Road to the Deep North debuted April 18 on on Amazon Prime.
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Casting director responds to backlash over Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi's Wuthering Heights roles
A casting director has responded to the backlash over Margot Robbie, 34, and Jacob Elordi, 27, starring in the remake of Wuthering Heights. Speaking on a Q&A panel at the Sands film festival in Scotland, Kharmel Cochrane responded to concern about both the Australian actors' ages, and Elordi's ethnicity, by saying there is 'no need to be accurate,' because 'it's just a book.' The casting veteran said she is currently catching a lot of heat for her work on Emerald Fennell's adaption of the beloved classic novel. 'There was one Instagram comment that said the casting director should be shot,' Cochrane said, per Deadline. 'But just wait till you see it, and then you can decide whether you want to shoot me or not. But you really don't need to be accurate. It's just a book. 'That is not based on real life. It's all art.' 'There's definitely going to be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy,' she continued. 'Wait until you see the set design because that is even more shocking,' Cochrane teased. 'And there may or may not be a dog collar in it.' Robbie has already been slammed online for her starring role in the latest version of the acclaimed novel, currently being filmed in the UK. Some fans of the book have questioned if the 34-year-old star is 'too old' to play fictional heroine Catherine, who is just a teenager. After a series of snaps of the Barbie actress on set went viral last week, fans took to social media in droves to claim the Hollywood beauty is 'wrong' for the part. The pictures show Robbie playing the lead character of Catherine, outfitted in a stunning off-the-shoulder wedding dress that featured a voluminous skirt. She also wears a veil and has her beautiful blonde locks in an artful braid. Robbie returned to work on the project after giving birth to her first child with her British husband Tom Ackerley last year, and the couple's production company, LuckyChap, is producing the film. Fans of Wuthering Heights have moaned that Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi will 'ruin' the Emily Brontë novel adaption because she is 'too old' for Catherine and he is 'not racially ambiguous enough' for Heathcliff Taking to X fans have moaned that Robbie and her handsome co-star will 'ruin' the 18th century novel by Emily Brontë, which has been filmed many times over the last 100 years. The original story centers on the upper middle-class Earnshaw family and their turbulent relationship with Heathcliff, an orphaned boy they take in. News of Elordi's casting in September had already prompted much backlash amongst critics as the brooding central character is described as a 'dark-skinned gypsy' with 'black eyes'. Heathcliff is also described as 'a little Lascar,' a 19th century term for an Indian sailor, which has also led naysayers to claim Elordi is not 'racially ambiguous' enough. In a recent interview with IndieWire, the Euphoria star opened up about how he landed the role in the first place - and his answer sparked even more backlash. 'I was really lucky,' he said. 'I was going to take a break for a while, and then Emerald just very simply texted me, and you can't run from that text.' He added to the publication: 'I'm so, so excited for people to see it.' The tortured Heathcliff is one of literature's most complex anti-heroes and while he is perceived to be racially ambiguous in the original text, he has been played by white actors, including Tom Hardy, Ralph Fiennes, and Lawrence Olivier. The character of Edgar Linton, a wealthy aristocrat who falls in love with and marries Cathy, is played by 36-year-old British Pakistani actor Shazad Latif, while Oscar-nominated actress Hong Chau, 45, an American born in Thailand, is set to appear as housekeeper Nelly Dean. Owen Cooper, the young British actor who has made waves for his debut performance in Netflix's Adolescence, is to play the teenage Heathcliff. Explaining her unique approach to casting, Cochrane said she never lets her work be dictated by the source material, or a director's vision.: 'Years ago, I would get people saying, "did you read the brief?" And I'd say yeah, and this is my interpretation of it, just like when you can read a book.' She last paired Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi together on the set of 2023 thriller Saltburn.
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It's just a book': Wuthering Heights casting director defends choice of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi
Kharmel Cochrane, the casting director of Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights has defended the choice of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi for the leading roles. Speaking at the Sands film festival in Scotland, Cochrane responded to criticism of both actors' ages and Elordi's ethnicity by saying there was 'no need to be accurate' as the source material is 'just a book', Deadline reported. Brontë's novel is set in the late 1700s in rural Yorkshire and depicts the passionate relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan fostered by her father, who is described in the book as having dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin. Many believe the character is meant to hail from a Romany or Gypsy background, which accounts for much of the prejudice against him. Most big and small screen adaptations of the novel have ignored this, with the character having been played by actors including Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hardy and Timothy Dalton. However, Andrea Arnold's 2011 adaptation did cast a mixed race actor, James Howson, in the role. Both Howson and his co-star, Kaya Scodelario, were also a similar age to the characters in the novel, who are in their early 20s for much of the story. Robbie is 34, while Elordi – who also hails from Australia – is 27. 'There was one Instagram comment that said the casting director should be shot,' said Cochrane. 'But just wait till you see it, and then you can decide whether you want to shoot me or not. But you really don't need to be accurate. It's just a book. That is not based on real life. It's all art.' She continued: 'There's definitely going to be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy. Wait until you see the set design, because that is even more shocking. And there may or may not be a dog collar in it.' Her response also met with online comebacks. 'So they saw the whitewashing backlash and proceeded to ignore it,' wrote one user on X. Another flagged Wuthering Heights' engagement with contemporary issues. 'A classic book that famously talks about class politics, racism & the patriarchal system of the time.' Elordi starred in Fennell's irreverent black comedy Saltburn, released in 2023, loosely inspired by Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. The director won an Oscar in 2021 for the screenplay of her debut film, Promising Young Woman. Robbie starred in and produced Barbie, the biggest film of 2023. Leaked photographs of her on set of Fennell's film in an anachronistic wedding dress attracted ire earlier this year.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
On Swift Horses Review: Character Study with Shallow Characters
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – On Swift Horses centers on three characters during the 1950s, and while the actors do an admirable job, the story fails to reveal any amount of depth to the characters' motivations. Directed by Daniel Minahan, On Swift Horses stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, and Will Poulter. Poulter plays a traditionally minded Korean War veteran who returns home and dreams of buying a starter home in California. Meanwhile, his brother (Elordi) is closeted man who eventually moves to Las Vegas to seek his fortune. His wife (Edgar-Jones), who seems to have an unspoken connection with her brother-in-law, begins to experiment with gambling and a same-sex relationship once she moves to California. Last week's review: Sinners On Swift Horses looks very good. Luc Montpellier's cinematography is arresting and beautiful, and the costume (Jeriana San Juan) and production (Erin Magill) designs capture the fifties aesthetic perfectly. Though the actors are quite convincing as these characters, what the script does with the characters is shallow and a bit confused. There are two plotlines of On Swift Horses. Edgar-Jones's character surreptitiously gambles on the local horse races with tips she picks up from overheard conversations at the diner where she works. Elordi's character also experiements with gambling in the high-stakes, dangerous casinos of Las Vegas. In both cases, the gambling only serves as a means of getting the characters from one plot event to another. In a film like this, which is ostensibly a character study, the gambling compulsion should come from something elemental to the characters, rather than just a minor plot contrivance. Likewise, the same-sex relationships in this film are just normal affairs. Edgar-Jones's character falls for a local woman, and Elordi's character falls for a risk-taking man. The relationships are not woven into the tapestry of the 1950s, and the film ends up being a bland collection of psuedolove stories that could be set anywhere at any time. Even when secrets are inevitably revealed, some characters are far more accepting than they might have been during this time. And the film's conclusion relies on some pretty wild coincidences. On Swift Horses is trying to be a character study, yet it doesn't deeply explore the characters or up the stakes of the drama. The result is a bland period piece that doesn't rely on the period or have anything revolutionary to say about now. Eyewitness News. Everywhere you are. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
