Jacob Elordi Says He 'Felt Very Corny' After Filming 'The Kissing Booth'

Elordi opened up about the film and the evolution of his acting career in the latest issue of 'Esquire.'

Jacob Elordi is trying to move past The Kissing Booth. In a new interview with Esquire magazine, the 24-year-old actor talked about the pressure he felt to prove his seriousness as an actor after making the teen movie.

"I used to worry a lot about what people thought about me, and about the kind of actor I was because of the movies I'd made," Elordi told the magazine. "I just felt very corny, and I felt like I had to prove to everyone that I was a serious actor. I felt terribly misunderstood."

He continued, "I got guarded for a little while, because I made a teen movie."

Since getting his start as Noah Flynn in Netflix's teen rom-com trilogy, Elordi has since taken on roles on HBO's much darker teen drama, Euphoria, and will have a small part opposite Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas in Deep Water, out Jan. 14. And while he's definitely moving on, the young actor wants to be candid about his career, and open about the projects he's taken on.

"I don't want to come to the end of my career and have not been candid and said what's going on and how it feels. So this is the start of me being open, I guess," he added.

This isn't the first time Elordi has made his feelings known about the film. In the five years since the first The Kissing Booth installment, he's questioned his role in the films and even suggested that the franchise should call it quits.

Despite his seeming lack of enthusiasm for the films, he did discuss the potential of a fourth film in the franchise when ET spoke with the cast of The Kissing Booth back in August.

The third installment ended with a six-year time jump, where a potential renewed romance is teased between Elle (Joey King), a successful video game designer, and Noah (Elordi), who's busy fielding multiple job offers. Meanwhile, after their high school breakup, Lee (Joel Courtney) and Rachel (Meganne Young), are seen happily back together as an engaged pair.

"I'd like to see them all in a nursing home together. That would be cool. That would be quite interesting," he said of adding an even bigger time jump if a fourth film was given the green light. "Maybe it's like the film is a series of monologues of them recounting everything that happened from 20 to 92."

Whether or not that comes to fruition, Elordi was pleased at the time with how The Kissing Booth trilogy came to a close.

"I think it's nice to see that kind of well-rounded ending and see where they end up," he said. "It's less ambiguous and you kind of gage an idea of where it's going and what happens."

As for what they hope fans take away from the flick, Elordi told ET, "I hope they enjoy it as much as they've enjoyed the other ones."
"I think that's such an important part of this," he said. "I just hope that they just have fun. I hope that it gives 'em two hours of break from the real world."

For more on the actor, check out the video below.

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