‘Euphoria’: Jacob Elordi Does Not Think Nate Knows ‘What Love Is’
On Jan. 9, season 2 of Euphoria premiered on HBO. Since the second season of the show premiered, a love triangle between Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney), and Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie) has taken center stage. Despite Nate pursuing both Cassie and Maddy, Elordi told Entertainment Weekly that he does not think Nate knows “what love is.”
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for season 2 episode 3 of Euphoria.]
Jacob Elordi questions if Nate can truly love someone on ‘Euphoria’
On Euphoria, Maddy and Nate dated throughout the first season. The two are not together at the start of the second season, and Nate begins a secret relationship with Cassie. While Nate might appear to like Cassie more than Maddy, Elordi does not think the character is capable of truly loving someone.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Elordi shared:
“I think he just has this very primal, ‘American Dream’ idea in him of having a very straight down the line, white picket fence, beautiful blonde life. This idea of love and family that he doesn’t have. This conventional storybook idea for him. And I think he’s doing that thing, that’s what you’re saying, trying to convince himself like ‘This is right in front of me. This is a good girl. She loves me. I have full control over her. This must be what love is.’ Because that’s his thing. The whole time I think he has no f***ing idea what love is. He’s not loved by his mom. He’s not loved by his dad. He’s not loved by his peers. He has no concept of what real love is. So he’s just trying the best he can to understand it.”
The actor thinks Nate’s scenes with Cassie are more romantic
In season 2 of Euphoria, many of Elordi’s scenes are shared with Sweeney. To differentiate between Nate’s feelings for Maddy and Cassie while filming, Elordi thought of the two different relationships as types of movies.
“Yeah, completely different working with Syd. With that particular storyline, I tried to treat it almost like I was making a romance film because I needed to have something different in my eyes in the way that I looked at her,” Elordi told Entertainment Weekly.
He continued, “Whereas when I was working with Alexa last season, it was like a drama. Everything was combative, everything was always on edge, everything was always worried — I needed to play every scene like it was a battle.”
Why Nate could still want a relationship with Maddy in ‘Euphoria’
In season 2 episode 3 of Euphoria, “Ruminations: Big and Little Bullys,” Nate starts the process of reconciling his relationship with Maddy while still talking with Cassie.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Elordi explained that Nate’s feelings for Maddy are complicated.
“You’ll always have a pang when you see that somebody. So that was definitely something that I was trying to play,” Elordi said. “Especially for someone like Nate who, on top of that, is so controlling, and does have something that he needs, and has no idea if he loves who he loves.”
New episodes of Euphoria air on HBO every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.
