IN JUNE 2022, Sofia Coppola placed a worried call to her cinematographer, Philippe Le Sourd. They were preparing to shoot her new biopic of Priscilla Presley, and the director was close to casting the all-important role of Elvis. "She didn't tell me who she had in mind," says Le Sourd, "but she asked if it would be a problem to shoot with a tall actor." You can understand her concern: Cailee Spaeny, the actress who was slated to play Priscilla, is just five-foot-one. The actor in question was Jacob Elordi, the 26-year-old Australian heartthrob, who is classically handsome with a whiff of Elvis's charisma and is six-footfive. In Hollywood, that is not just tall but towering, unapologetically altitudinous in a way that few leading men have ever dared to be. Could the cinematographer cram such differently sized humans into the same frame? Le Sourd took a can-do approach. "I told Sofia, "There's always a technical solution, and we'll make it look as good as possible," he says. "But I'm sure that for some directors, the height difference could've been too much." In most walks of life, height like Elordi's is an advantage.
Tall people, especially men, make more money, get more matches on dating apps, and win more presidential elections. They can also run faster, see better at concerts, and buy booze for high-school parties without wearing a trench coat and standing on a friend's shoulders. One of the vanishingly few places on earth where height does not automatically confer benefits is a movie set, where logistics seem to favor smaller performers. Diminutive actors-like Tom Cruise and Tom Holland (both about five-foot-seven) or Robert Downey Jr. and Joaquin Phoenix (both five-foot-eight)-can pair more easily with most co-stars and play younger characters for longer, thus expanding their career options.
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