Jacob Elordi & Cast at the Australian Premiere of ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’
Australian actor Jacob Elordi has finally returned home after enjoying global success to film a series down under. He leads the upcoming Amazon Original series, Narrow Road to the Deep North, directed by Justin Kurzel, written by Shaun Grant and is based on the Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name by Richard Flanagan.
I was at the Australian red carpet premiere at HOYTS Entertainment Quarter in Sydney, with Elordi and the cast including Simon Baker, Odessa Young, Olivia DeJonge, Heather Mitchell, Thomas Weatherall, Sho Kasamatsu, and Essie Davis. They spoke with SHARP about their series and their favourite Australian treats.
Elordi always wanted to work with Aussie director Kurzel, who recently directed the 2024 TIFF film, The Order. “He demands something of you as a performer and I just wanted to be there for whatever that process was, “ said Elordi, who wore a matching denim jacket and trousers by Bottega Venetta. It’s not a surprise he opted for this brand given his recent runway of airport looks have included many Bottega Veneta bags.
The 27-year-old plays Dorrigo Evans (Ciarán Hinds as the older Dorrigo) as the five-part series charts the life of Dorrigo through his passionate love affair with Amy Mulvaney (Odessa Young) while also showing his time held captive in a POW camp. The series shifts between timelines, also detailing his later years spent as a revered surgeon and reluctant war hero.
One can easily draw a through-line with Elordi and Dorrigo — both are men of literature and poetry. When asked about which poem he loves, Elordi paused to reflect before sharing, “There’s one called “Home is So Sad.” I love that one… It just feels like being alive.” Philip Larkin’s 1958 poem describes the sense of loss that haunts one’s soul.
Kurzel sees this quiet immersive nature shared between the role and the actors who play him. “There’s a sort of dignity and grace in the way that Richard wrote that character, and something incredibly sort of cinematic. I remember when I first saw Jacob, I mean, not only is he an incredibly immersive actor, extremely talented, but there’s something just astonishingly cinematic about him that made me think he would bring this sort of quietness, and this mystery, to this character in a really beautiful way. The hardest thing was how to match Jacob and fortunately Ciaran Hinds said yes, he also has a very sort of cinematic kind of quality and a kind of quietness and dignity to him.”
The actors who play POW bonded as they lost a lot of weight and Kurzel was grateful for that. “The boys sacrificed an enormous amount. They lost a lot of weight and put themselves through quite a bit. There was a level of authenticity that was really important that you not only saw but really felt.” he said.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North streams on Prime Video on Friday.
