Jacob Elordi and director Justin Kurzel spoke about making their new series, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” at a preview screening in Melbourne, Australia.
Adapted from Richard Flanagan’s Man Booker Prize–winning novel, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” draws on his father’s experience as a prisoner of war in Burma during World War II. Director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant adapted the novel into an emotionally charged five-part series for Amazon Prime Video in Australia. (Read IndieWire’s review here as we await distribution in North America.)
Spanning three decades, the story follows army surgeon Dorrigo Evans through a lovestruck youth, brutal captivity in a Japanese POW camp, and the long shadow of memory in old age. Evans is played by Elordi in the 1940s and by Ciarán Hinds in the 1980s, as the older man reckons with the defining experiences of his youth.
“Justin created a setup that made it feel completely real,” the “Euphoria” and “Saltburn” star told a pre-screening Q&A. “There is a usual facade in filmmaking where you shoot out of order; the end, the beginning, and then the middle, say. We shot it not chronologically but in terms of memory — in terms of the story. So I got to shoot for a few weeks pre-war, in the Summer of Love, as the young Dorrigo, and I got to build all of those memories and experiences on the set, so that when I went into the camps for the second portion, I had very real memories from filming to draw on.”
Following a Special Gala premiere at the Berlinale in January, where it emerged as one of the festival’s highlights, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” has been gradually building word-of-mouth buzz for its powerful storytelling, evocative physicality, and Kurzel’s deft balance of brutality, love, and fragile camaraderie.
The series co-stars Simon Baker, Thomas Weatherall, Olivia DeJonge, Odessa Young, and Kurzel’s wife, Essie Davis, star of horror classic “The Babadook” and Noah Hawley’s forthcoming FX series “Alien: Earth.” While the early episodes explore romance and promise, the series shifts dramatically once Dorrigo and his comrades are captured, where they battle starvation, illness, and despair while growing ever more emaciated.
Kurzel praised the cast for their commitment to physically transforming for the roles, noting the process was closely managed by a dietitian. “You can’t just starve yourself,” he said. “It had to be done safely.” The actors followed a carefully designed plan that balanced significant weight loss with maintaining their health, a process that involved both strict nutrition and intense physical training. For Elordi, this was one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of the production.
“I was lucky to be surrounded by an incredible cast of young actors in the jungle, Aussie boys,” he said. “The camaraderie just came immediately with the set that Justin provided. It was like a live theater experience. There was no stopping for lighting setups or anything like that. We had two weeks together before we even filmed, to get to know each other and to train together. In the middle of filming, we had a six-week break where we all cut the weight together. There’s something that happens when you lose that weight and when you’re working towards a common artistic goal together. There’s a bond that happens that you don’t get in everyday life.”
It is in creating and emotionally stress-testing this masculine environment that Grant and Kurzel really excel, and where many of the series’ most moving scenes can be found. With films such as “The Order,” “Macbeth,” “Nitram,” and “The True History of the Kelly Gang,” Kurzel established himself as one of the most incisive explorers of the disquieted male psyche. “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” shows him following this trait through the psychological and physical apocalypse of war, to its transcendent conclusion in a story that differs from Flanagan’s novel.
“I think it’s an extraordinary love story, this book, and it has an intimacy that is extremely special,” Kurzel told the crowd. “I felt it could be adapted as a series which really interested me in regard to the structure and the DNA of it in terms of these different timelines of a man’s life, allowing us to dig deeper into those different stages. Usually, with these sort of war stories, the lens is very wide. This is about memory and mind and body and love.”
The series’ release finds Kurzel in a phase of unparalleled productivity. Over the last 12 months he has not only delivered “The Order” and the documentary “Ellis Park,” but he has also shot the final two episodes of Jason Bateman’s forthcoming Netflix series “Black Rabbit.” The eight-part New York-set thriller sees Kurzel re-team with his producer from “The Order,” Zach Baylin, as well as its star, Jude Law, and “The Narrow Road to the Deep North’s” Odessa Young.
While Kurzel said he is no longer associated with the Laura Dern and Benedict Cumberbatch sci-fi drama “Morning,” he is about to begin production on another adaptation. Kurzel has replaced “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson to helm Cory Finley’s adaptation of “Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke,” journalist Dean Kuipers’ account of a five-day standoff between marijuana advocates and the FBI. As an indication of the regard in which he is held by actors, Kurzel was brought onto the project by its star Sebastian Stan, a gesture that speaks to the collaborative spirit he fosters on set.
By drawing on pre-established relationships as he moves between projects, Kurzel creates a production environment built on mutual respect and creative freedom, allowing his actors the space to fully explore their characters. Flanagan noted this when he visited Kurzel’s set.
“This is very much a cast-driven show,” Flanagan said. “They discovered aspects of themselves in this and made something extraordinary. Because no one knows what makes a good film or good TV. But what makes a bad film or bad TV is destroying the freedom of the director. The great creative act in filmmaking is the directorial act, and that’s not a ridiculous French theory that escaped the Left Bank. That’s the reality of making cinema or making television. When Justin kindly agreed to do this, what I said to him was, ‘I don’t want fidelity to the novel. I want you to find whatever moves you in my book. Make your own work of art out of it and make it your own way.’”
“The Narrow Road to the Deep North” premiered at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival. Amazon Prime Video will distribute the series in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, with Sony Pictures currently seeking a U.S. distributor.
