Australian actor Jacob Elordi, known for playing Nate Jacobs on hit HBO Max series Euphoria and Netflix original The Kissing Booth, is set to star in The Narrow Road to the Deep North, new WWII miniseries. The series will be produced by Sony Pictures Television’s Curio Pictures, an Australian based company that focuses on television and film projects for Australian and international platforms, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The series is based on Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel about an Australian doctor haunted by memories of a love affair with his uncle’s wife and of his subsequent experiences as a Far East prisoner of war during the construction of the Burma Railway. Flanagan is also known for his novels The Living Sea of Waking Dreams and The Sound of One Hand Clapping. Elordi is set to play character Dorrigo Evans, an Australian army surgeon whose brief love affair with his uncle’s young wife haunts him through his days as reluctant leader of prisoners in a Thai-Burmese camp during World War II, via The Hollywood Reporter.
The series is set to be written by Shaun Grant (Nitram and Berlin Syndrome) and directed by Justin Kurzel (The Snowtown Murders and Macbeth) according to The Hollywood Reporter. Grant and Kurzel have described the show as “an intimate character study, depiction of both sides of war, an investigation into a marriage and a portrait of an unforgettable love affair,” via The Hollywood Reporter.
Kurzel added that he thinks it is “great” for Grant and him to be collaborating on this series with Elordi, stating that the series “needs a powerful leading presence,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. The managing director of Curio Pictures, Jo Porter, is “thrilled” to have Jacob Elordi on the project, and says that the “character of Dorrigo Evans requires multi-layered actor who can bring strength, sensitivity and charisma to the role,” via The Hollywood Reporter.