The Heathcliff Effect: How Jacob Elordi Became Hollywood’s Most Wanted Leading Man

From sleeping in his car with $400 to his name to starring opposite Margot Robbie in the year’s most talked-about romance, Jacob Elordi’s rise reads like a modern fairy tale.

From Brisbane to Broke in LA

Jacob Elordi’s Hollywood story began with him sleeping in his 2004 Mitsubishi on Mulholland Drive, down to his last $400-$800, with his visa about to expire. The 6’5″ Australian had moved to Los Angeles after filming The Kissing Booth, but work wasn’t coming. He was couch surfing at friends’ houses and planning to head home when Euphoria became his last-ditch audition. That desperation? It paid off. “‘Euphoria’ for me felt like acting for my life. ‘The Kissing Booth’ felt like acting for my life,” he later reflected. Sometimes the best performances come from having everything on the line.

The Teen Heartthrob Trap

Despite largely negative critical reception, The Kissing Booth became one of Netflix’s most-watched titles in 2018 and brought Elordi to widespread fame. But fame came with a price. In a 2023 GQ interview, he called the films “ridiculous” and admitted he “didn’t want to make them,” doing them only to “do whatever the fuck [he had] to do” to become an actor in the United States. It’s the classic Hollywood dilemma: the role that makes you famous might not be the one that makes you proud. But Euphoria changed everything, casting him as Nate Jacobs, a troubled high school football player he described as “a narcissist” and “a sociopath”. Suddenly, he wasn’t just a pretty face.

The Serious Actor Transformation

Elordi’s 2023 was a masterclass in career pivoting: he portrayed Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and appeared in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, earning him a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. While his teen roles established him as a heartthrob, Elordi sought to prove himself as a serious actor, achieving critical acclaim and recognition. The strategy worked. Guillermo del Toro, who cast him as the Creature in his $120 million Frankenstein, explained: “Jacob has the presence and the emotional depth. The eyes tell the story, and his eyes are full of humanity.” This casting signals that Elordi is no longer being viewed merely as a leading man in romance.

The Wuthering Heights Phenomenon

The decision to cast a white actor as the racially ambiguous Heathcliff sparked controversy, but director Emerald Fennell defended her choice, stating Elordi “looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read”. It was Elordi who first inspired Fennell to adapt Wuthering Heights after she saw him with sideburns on the Saltburn set and thought: “Oh my God, it’s the Heathcliff on the cover of the book that I’ve had since I was a teenager.” “I saw him play Heathcliff. And he is Heathcliff,” Margot Robbie declared. Early reactions are calling the film “a rip-roaring, bodice-ripping crowd-pleaser” that “will open well and soar at the box office” with both Elordi and Robbie coming “out ahead”.

The $4 Million Man

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Jacob Elordi’s total net worth in 2025 is an impressive $4 million, which is a massive step up from the “$400–$800” he had in his bank account before he booked Euphoria in 2019. He’s become the face of Hugo Boss’s The Scent Le Parfum and was named a brand ambassador for luxury Swiss watch brand Tag Heuer alongside A-listers like Ryan Gosling. If Frankenstein lands successfully, Jacob Elordi will move into a new category of Hollywood stardom — one that blends critical credibility with blockbuster viability. This is the territory of actors like Robert Pattinson and Adam Driver. Not bad for a kid who once slept in his car on Mulholland Drive.