“You Look Fucking Sexy”: Eric Dane, in Conversation With Jacob Elordi

Last month, as Jacob Elordi waited for his TV father Eric Dane to log onto Zoom, the Euphoria star milled about his rental house in Toronto, where he’s been filming Frankenstein with director Guillermo del Toro. On the television in the background was Robert Siodmak’s 1946 crime thriller The Killers. “I’m on a bit of a noir kick,” said Elordi as he jotted down questions for Dane in his notepad. “I’ve been going through all the classics.” It’s been a while since Elordi, who last year starred in both Priscilla and Saltburn, found himself in Los Angeles, but by the time Dane appeared onscreen, it was as if no time had passed since they last played Cal and Nate Jacobs, a duo whose relationship is decidedly more toxic than their real-life counterparts.

Dane, too, has been keeping busy: this summer, the original McSteamy has starred in Bad Boys 4 opposite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and One Fast Move, in which he plays the estranged father to rising star KJ Apa’s character Wes, an aspiring motorcycle racer. “I love meeting the younger kids coming up, especially the ones that have a good head on their shoulders,” Dane told Elordi. “It’s an anomaly to see a younger actor in this town who’s achieved a certain level of success but has an honest and soulful head on his body.” Of course, Dane counts Elordi among those well-adjusted newcomers, though he’s too modest to take any credit for it. In conversation, the actors discussed vaping, Dante’s Inferno, the strange nature of celebrity, and the one Euphoria scene they’ll never forget.

JACOB ELORDI: What’s up?

ERIC DANE: God, it is so good to see you and hear your voice, Jacob.

ELORDI: Man, it’s been so long.

DANE: I’ve missed you, brother.

ELORDI: You, too. I’m so sorry. I lost my fucking phone when I was in Australia.

DANE: Yeah, I figured something like that had happened. When’d you get back to the States?

ELORDI: I came back in January and then came straight here to Toronto. I haven’t been to L.A. The last time I lived in L.A. was when I came to your place.

DANE: No!

ELORDI: Yeah, I haven’t lived there in quite some time, man.

DANE: Have you been to my new place?

ELORDI: No, I was there when you were between places. You were off Sunset in that old Hollywood house.

DANE: No, that’s where I still am. I love this house.

ELORDI: Oh, yeah?

DANE: Yes.

ELORDI: You know what’s so crazy? Someone mentioned that house yesterday on set, an acting coach that I worked with, because we were talking about—

DANE: Who were you working with?

ELORDI: A guy called Gerry Grennell. We were talking about safety and how you preserve, not anonymity, but just a sense of self and home in a city like Los Angeles.

DANE: Yeah, you insulate yourself.

ELORDI: He said, “You buy that whole entire block and you lock it down.” 

DANE: Right. That was the plan.

ELORDI: Yeah. What are you doing in the back there? Is that microphone from when you started buying sound equipment when we were shooting Euphoria?

DANE: Well, I’ve owned that mic for a while, dude. It was so funny. At some point in my life, I don’t know, I figured out how to get a clear head. And I remember walking into my garage. This was years ago– five, six years ago. And I turned to Rebecca [Gayheart] and I was like, “Where did all this studio equipment come from? There’s a recording studio in our garage. Where did that shit come from?” She was like, “Dude, you’ve been on the moon.”

ELORDI: I do a similar thing when I lose my mind. I end up buying a bunch of stuff or getting into some kind of insane hobby. And the moment my brain comes back, I look at all the shit that’s laying around and I have no attachment to it whatsoever.

DANE: Right. And at the time, it was saving your life.

ELORDI: Well, keeping you breathing, I suppose. So let’s get the fucking nuts and bolts out of the way. You’re in a Bad Boys movie.

DANE: I am in a Bad Boys movie.

ELORDI: Tell me about it. How do you go into that world of a big action movie? Because that’s different from what we were doing…

DANE: Okay, how do I say this without being offensive to anybody? Because the experience was awesome. And Will Smith and Martin Lawrence could not be cooler human beings. But for the most part, the notes you have to hit shooting a Bad Boys movie are entirely different. I’m not suggesting one is better than the other, or more gratifying. It’s just different. Will Smith, you would get along great with him, dude. He is such a solid dude. He’s a fantastic actor. He is wildly talented. He’s super committed, Jacob. He cares so much about the project. He actually, you know, makes it better. It’s a great work environment. There wasn’t much being asked of me but those very specific notes, and I’m hoping that I hit every single one of them. I saw the movie twice.

ELORDI: I haven’t seen the movie yet.

DANE: It’s fun, it’s fun.

ELORDI: What do you play in it?

DANE: I’m the antagonist, man.

ELORDI: Let’s go. One thing that I will say, and I hate to be this kind of journalist, but you look sexy in the trailer. You look fucking sexy in that shit. My mom watched it with me. And mom was like, “He should be the lead of the whole movie. That’s the person I want to see in the whole movie.”

DANE: Oh, god bless your mother.

ELORDI: So where’d you guys shoot?

DANE: For the most part, we shot everything we could shoot on a soundstage. We shot in Atlanta, Georgia. And then when we needed the exteriors and the establishing shots, that had to take place in Miami. We went to Miami for a few weeks. But we had something that was called a strike in between those two time frames…

ELORDI: I heard about that.

DANE: You heard about that? It was so brutal.

ELORDI: It was constructive.

DANE: And it’s going to happen again in three years because they’ve just kicked the can down the road, essentially. They haven’t really amended or rectified anything. They haven’t even touched the fundamental changes that need to be made in order for SAG, as the union, to walk away feeling like they’ve been made whole. I just don’t know if that’s going to happen. But we shall see, man. Until then, I’m going to show up when I get my call time, as are you.

ELORDI: I’m the exact same way. I remember thinking I was really lucky that I got to keep working throughout that. I don’t really understand unions, or business, or anything. For me it’s like, the work is your food. And I saw people starving. That was the hardest thing. I don’t understand the politics of it or people standing up on soapboxes and things like that. For me it was just like, “What about the people that just love to do that call time? I’m there, let’s go.” I don’t think too much past that. This is what I do. It’s your fuel in a way. You know?

DANE: Yeah. And it makes it even more difficult when you start adopting a different food source. You get so used to this fuel that’s like your lifeblood. And then you start having to do things that you wouldn’t normally do. I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with any work that I engage in where the prerequisite is that I be a celebrity.

ELORDI: 100%.

DANE: I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it.

ELORDI: You’ve probably had that since Grey’s [Anatomy], this feeling that things come along on your notoriety and not your work.

DANE: Right.

ELORDI: How do you deal with that? Because post-Euphoria, I often feel disenfranchised and directionless. I find it hard a lot of the time to stay motivated on that post, this idea of “celebrity.” It makes it hard to keep finding interest and truth in the work. And that’s actually one of the questions that I have for you, because you’ve been working for a really, really long time. And when I met you, the biggest thing that I took away was, “This is one fucking cool cat.” And a lot of the passion that we had on set when we would talk about books and things like going in and out of the process, you know? You just seemed to love and were constantly rediscovering the craft while we were shooting. I remember, even when we got into season two, it was like you’d rediscovered it in a new way. Do you still find that after Euphoria? Because Euphoria is, for you, like a double down on Grey’s– they’re both these two ginormous things. 

DANE: I try to remain as teachable as I can. I think the moment I stop rediscovering the craft, I’m more or less dead. It’s not a craft that can be mastered, in my opinion. And although there are virtuoso performers, your Daniel Day Lewises, your Gary Oldmans, your Leo DiCaprios, they still haven’t even figured out. You know? They’re virtuoso performers, but they haven’t gotten it all. There’s still a lot left for them to discover. And those moments of discovery are what keeps us going. That’s what keeps me going: you find something new about a character you’ve been playing for two-and-a-half years.

ELORDI: And on your note about celebrity as well, each of the people that you mentioned– and to me, yourself included– never indulged it or brought it to work. It’s like this thing that’s happening parallel to the work that you’re actually doing, and that helps keep the work real. 

DANE: And I think people assume “celebrity” as a litmus, I guess, for any one person’s success in this field. But I just don’t see it that way.

ELORDI: Oh, yeah. I feel like that’s death if you did. That’s like the death of truth—if there really is any, anyway.

DANE: Look, I’m not going to suggest it’s not fun. A lot of it is fun. But when I’m approaching the work, I leave that at the door. It’s got no business.

ELORDI: Warren Beatty said, “Don’t complain, don’t explain.”

DANE: “Don’t complain, don’t explain.” Right.

ELORDI: Are you still vaping?

DANE: A little bit.

ELORDI: The JUUL is gone and you’ve moved on to that obnoxious, fucking—

DANE: I’ve moved on to these obnoxious like, Barbie toys that are so clearly marketed towards children. It’s shocking.

ELORDI: Look at that thing!

DANE: Yeah, look at it in all its glory. I’m not going to say the name because we don’t want to give them any free press. But I have to have something, Jacob. I don’t do anything else, so there’s got to be something that I can use as a vice.

ELORDI: You told me that. And there’s this one other thing you told me that I’ve repeated so many times, but I’ve struggled with terribly. You said to me, “I cannot afford to worry about what anybody thinks of me because I will literally die.”

DANE: Correct.

ELORDI: I still hold that. But I wonder, do you still find it hard, as everything sort of gets bigger in this digital age, to not let that affect you?

DANE: A certain amount of it comes with a territory, you know? It’s something that we’ve certainly signed up for. But at the same time, it’s not something you can ever prepare for, nor is it something that I will ever get used to.

ELORDI: There’s a Robert Mitchum interview where he goes, “You can know it’s coming. But as soon as you’re on that big, telescopic red eye, everybody knows you. You don’t know nobody.” Even though you can prepare for it and you’re aware of what’s coming, you can never be fully aware of all it entails, I suppose.

DANE: I think there is a situational awareness that comes with it by virtue of seeing some of your friends experience it, or working with somebody who’s experienced it. Certainly you’ve worked with a couple dudes who have to deal with it on the highest level. And like you said, you can’t really prepare yourself for that type of success and celebrity status. Which is why I think a lot of people get upset when actors complain about that aspect of it. But it’s hard, and we’re allowed to have voices. A lot of people don’t want to hear me complain about having so many eyeballs on me. But that’s a part of this gig that I don’t think I will ever be 100 percent comfortable with. 

ELORDI: I think that’s what makes you a great actor, though. And I mean that sincerely, because it’s also what makes you a human being. Acting is this strange thing where it’s like, the job is to be human. But then, the cost of it is that you go to this place that is not quite human. 

DANE: Right. By and large, it’s not something that most people get to experience.

ELORDI: So you made this other movie called One Fast Move.

DANE: I did.

ELORDI: Tell me about it.

DANE: Well, it comes out August 8th. It’s a really cool movie. It’s a great father-son story told in the world of the gritty superbike circuit. If you’re not familiar with MotoGP [Grand Prix motorcycle racing], right below it is World Superbike. But the attention that gets focused onto those who are successful at it is wildly different in the MotoGP world. The drop-off is insane. So anyway, the point is that we have established this world that’s very fucking gritty, and it’s about this father who gave up a life involving his kid to continue to pursue his dream of becoming a champion racer and ends up eventually getting into MotoGP, and then the son comes back to try to establish a connection and maybe get an understanding of who his father is. I think that’s where the friction lies. Kids feel like the world revolves around them. They’re never going to understand why any parent would choose to pursue another dream when there’s a young child involved. They’re like, “What do you mean you didn’t want to be with me? Was it something that I did wrong?”

ELORDI: Right. There’s that moment when you realize that your parents are people.

DANE: Yeah.

ELORDI: Do you think your girls have realized that you’re a person? Do they understand it? When I see my mom and dad now, I go like, “Oh my god, what an asshole I was.”

DANE: Yeah, and it’s funny, some of the things that you heard your mom telling you when you were younger that seemed like such a drag at the time. All of a sudden, you get older and maybe you have kids of your own or you start to understand fundamentally that, “Okay, they were doing it because they had my best interests at heart.”

ELORDI: There’s also that realization of like, “Fuck, that day when this thing happened, they were just tired. They were a person who was tired.” Did you work with KJ [Apa] on that movie?

DANE: I did. Do you know KJ?

ELORDI: I know him well, I love KJ. He’s the man. He actually rides bikes, right?

DANE: He does. And what a sweet, sweet young man. He’s just a good guy. And I love meeting the younger kids coming up, especially the ones that have a good head on their shoulders. It’s an anomaly to see a younger actor in this town who’s achieved a certain level of success but has an honest and soulful head on his body. He’s just a really sweet kid and we had a great time shooting this movie. It absolutely, 100-percent facilitated an understanding what the real, true dynamics were between the two characters. And at the end of the day, that’s all we’re doing, right?

ELORDI: Trying our best to do, I suppose.

DANE: Right. Exactly.

ELORDI: So what are you up to now? I haven’t seen you in so long.

DANE: It’s been a minute, dude. I think we need to make a real effort to get together.

ELORDI: Yeah, man. Well, I’m here in Toronto for a little bit longer. I’m finishing this movie and then I’m going to come back [to L.A.] for a bit. Are you working? Do you want to work?

DANE: Yeah, I’m starting a show in September called Countdown for Amazon. It’s a very cool concept. The cast that’s been established so far has been like, “I get where their heads are at.” They’re getting really good actors. And from what I understand, good people. You spend 15 hours on a set with somebody, let’s make sure they’re up to snuff. Because I’ve worked with some scoundrels and it’s not fun, dude. I’m sure you’ve had those experiences, too.

ELORDI: It changes the whole thing. It becomes a job.

DANE: Oh, it becomes a job. Every day is just a slog.

ELORDI: That’s a gamble though, right? Because you can bring it as much as you want to bring it, but if the body is dead, there’s nothing you can pump into it, you know? How do you keep bringing that when it feels like the project is dead or the well has been poisoned? Do you just turn to a place within yourself? 

DANE: For sure. It becomes such a chore. And look, all work is not supposed to be fun at all times. I want to send a very clear message that it requires a certain level of discipline and commitment, and not every day is fun. You know?

ELORDI: No. When you’re making a movie, everybody’s going to be like, “My job’s shit.” But you do get into bed, even when you’re smashed, even when you’re miserable, and you go, “Fuck it. At least I’m making movies.” 

ERIC DANE: Right. I remember picking up my phone once after we had shot the scene where I was on my way to getting drunk and I was telling you that I was going to go take the car out for a ride. I remember picking up my phone that night and seeing all these funny pictures of you on the phone. And I was like, “How the fuck did this dude get these pictures in here?” And then I realized, you can pick up anybody’s phone and take pictures.

ELORDI: You can just open that thing. I still go back and watch that scene. To me, that is a master class. I stood at the top of those stairs like, “Fuck. This is a guy.” I’ll never, ever forget being there and being able to see that scene happen. That’s the whole second season for me, you just pissing in the house.

DANE: What a way to end that season, too, with what we know about how it ended, what was scripted, what we ended up shooting.

ELORDI: I had a near breakdown. That scene still lives in my head, the one that didn’t get shot.

DANE: Oh, dude. It’s literally “The End” by The Doors.

ELORDI: I remember that song was playing on a loop for like, 12 hours. “This is the end, beautiful friend.” I actually feel like that was a version of Dante’s Inferno and that was one of the layers of hell.

DANE: Oh, for sure.

ELORDI: I think if that went on televisions, people’s screens would’ve just caught fire. And it would’ve been infinite—just people dying on their couches, you know?

DANE: It was a wild day at the office, man. 

ELORDI: That’s that moment when you go, “At least I’m making movies.” 

DANE: God bless Sam Levinson.

ELORDI: Amen to that. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to just sit and chat about this shit, you know what I mean?

DANE: Absolutely. Some of the more meaningful conversations I’ve had surrounding the show have been with you.

ELORDI: 100 percent. It really is like, my bread and butter. It’s what taught me how to do everything: the way I approach movies now, the way I approach the work now, the way I approach the industry. I’ll be quoting you all the time. It was so much fun.

DANE: Face value wouldn’t suggest that it was any fun but yeah, we did have a lot of fun with that stuff.

ELORDI: Also, just hanging out, running around LA. I haven’t lived like that since then. It felt like a time machine to how I used to see the Rat Pack. 

DANE: So what are you working on right now? Anything you love?

ELORDI: Yeah, man. I’m doing Frankenstein with Guillermo del Toro.

DANE: Oh, wow. That’s right. That’s fantastic, Jacob.

ELORDI: It’s absolute magic.

DANE: He’s a magician, dude. He builds out worlds that are very clearly defined.

ELORDI: And no one loves it more than him, that’s my favorite part. This guy, you can’t beat him. No one could love what he does more than him.

DANE: And I think that’s important, especially when you’re playing ball at the level that he’s playing at. You’re essentially reinventing some of the ideas that were considered to be non-transferable, immovable, set in stone. Guys like Christopher Nolan, Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, they reinvent the way that you go about making a film.

ELORDI: Totally. Do you still spend your time watching movies?

DANE: Oh, yeah. I love watching movies. There’s two things that are always on in the background of this house ad nauseum, and that’s music or movies.

ELORDI: I’m exactly the same. And you don’t have to be sitting there giving it your absolute attention all the time, especially if you’ve seen them before. But it’s just like, a comfortable world to live in when they’re playing.

DANE: I agree, dude. And it’s fun to be working with people that care that much about the craft. They’re always teachable and, as a result, they’re always redefining what was once thought as paint-by-the-numbers protocol.

ELORDI: I feel like that comes from love. It’s got to be love. It can’t be money. The only times that I think it’s really alive is when it’s a labor of love. You know?

DANE: A hundred, thousand percent. Dude, tell me about your love life. 

ELORDI: [Pauses] I’ll call you…