Over a year before he was causing trouble as Nate on “Euphoria,” Jacob Elordi was already embroiled in plenty of high school drama as part of the fervently popular Netflix romantic comedy “The Kissing Booth.” The movie centers upon a teenage girl named Elle (Joey King) who sparks a new romance with her best friend’s oldest brother Noah (Elordi) after the two share an intimate moment during the school’s kissing booth fundraiser. The movie also spawned two sequels, which Elordi also starred in, with the third movie wrapping up the trilogy in 2021.
The best way to describe Elordi’s performance as Noah to “Euphoria” fans is that he’s basically playing a version of Nate that isn’t absolutely depraved. Like Nate, Elordi’s Noah is a popular, athletic bad-boy with anger issues, but rather than being corrupted to the core, he actually has a good heart. Despite his overprotective and aggressive tendencies, Noah actually grows as a character throughout the films, making several selfless decisions by the end of the saga in order for Elle to have a bright future. In the wake of “Euphoria,” however, it is admittedly a bit hard to watch Elordi in these movies without thinking he has some sort of deeply villainous ulterior motive.