If you ask actor Jacob Elordi, it's "bullsh*t" that his character in the Kissing Booth movies isn't a cigarette smoker. Elordi, whose breakout role was in the original Kissing Booth film on Netflix in 2018, would reprise his role as Noah Flynn in two sequels that were released in 2020 and 2021. The character is who Elordi is best known for aside from his main role as Nate Jacobs in the hit HBO show Euphoria.
The Kissing Booth is based on the book of the same name by Beth Reekles. In a new interview with GQ, Elordi explains how he basically treated the book as a "sacred text," using its descriptions of his character to shape how he would portray Noah on-screen. When he noticed that the Netflix series version of Noah wasn't scripted to be a smoker, Elordi cried foul. The actor says he lobbied hard to have that changed as he wanted his portrayal to be as book-accurate as possible.
“I remember saying, ‘He smokes in the book. I need to smoke. He needs to have cigarettes. He’s a bad boy. I was like, ‘This is bullsh*t!’ I remember going to war for it. I was like, ‘Are we lying to the f***ing millions of 14-year-olds out there? This guy smokes nicotine. It says here on page four – look!’ I imagine people were just like, ‘Jesus f***ing Christ. Is this guy serious?’”
Jacob Elordi Isn't the Only Actor to Campaign for Cigarettes
It's not all that uncommon for actors to lobby for their characters to be portrayed as cigarette smokers. Not so long ago, Colin Farrell revealed how Warner Bros. hadn't allowed him to smoke as his incarnation of the Penguin in the superhero movie The Batman. Most versions of the supervillain seem to be depicted as smokers, and Farrell felt that his version of Penguin should similarly be seen puffing away. As he explained via Jake's Takes on YouTube:
“I fought valiantly for a cigar, I even said at one stage 'can I have it unlit' and they were like no. The Oz that we meet hasn’t embodied the energy of the Penguin that we recognize from the source comics and from previous films, so I’ll see if it goes again. I’d love to explore it because he’s not an underboss, he’s not a boss, he’s just a soldier of Falcone at this stage. But he has great ambition and dreams of doing big big things”.
Farrell will reprise his role as the Penguin for a spinoff series on HBO Max which is expected to start filming in the early months of 2023.