Jacob Elordi on Why Losing Weight to Play a Prisoner of War in ‘Narrow Road to the Deep North’ ‘Wasn’t Torture’: ‘There Was a Peace That Came Over All of Us’

variety.com:

Ellise Shafer Jacob Elordi had to lose weight to play a prisoner of war in the new Justin Kurzel-directed series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” — but to him it “wasn’t complete torture.” When Variety asked how the weight loss affected him at a Berlin Film Festival press conference, the “Euphoria” and “Saltburn” actor said it was actually “a very calming experience” to go through the process with his fellow cast members, whom he affectionally called “the lads.” “I think there was something quite profound that happened, in that it wasn’t complete torture,” he said. “There was a peace that sort of came over all of us.

And you kind of reach a level of love that goes beyond what you’re used to, because everything gets stripped away and you come down to the bare bones of, ‘Is my mate OK?

Am I OK? How can I help? Do you want a jellybean?'” Elordi, who was sporting sideburns (perhaps for his latest role as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”?) added that the cast was “watching each other and taking care of each other, so it [became] quite primal.

And I’m just really grateful to have shared that with these lads.” Based on Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” follows medical officer Dorrigo Evans, a “Japanese prisoner of war forced to work on the Thai-Burma railway” who is “haunted by the memory of his affair with his uncle’s wife, Amy,” according to an official synopsis.