How Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi Embody Queer Outsiders in ‘On Swift Horses’

Jacob Elordi was ready to show off his skills with a deck of cards. The Euphoria and Priscilla star was auditioning for a film called On Swift Horses, hoping to land the part of Julius—a Korean War veteran who hustles for money. He needed to prove that he was a natural in the art of deception. “I’m not a big card player or anything like that, so it was just getting used to having them in your hands and not letting them fly out everywhere,” Elordi says. “Then I really learned how to shuffle them in a cool way. And yeah, I watched a lot of YouTube videos.” His skills impressed his soon-to-be costar, Twisters’ Daisy Edgar-Jones. “Jacob had already nailed a bunch of card tricks!” she says, with Elordi in the Zoom window beside her. Grinning, he responds, “Well, I don’t know if they had names or not.” Which is to say he was kind of making it up as he went along.

For a film that’s more about atmosphere and physicality than dialogue, Elordi’s prep turned out to be appropriate. When they got to the audition room, rather than merely reading lines, director Daniel Minahan and his team ran exercises more akin to a workshop. They engaged in lots of swing dancing, exploring the chemistry they’d need to anchor a movie about queer outsiders whose unspoken bond fuels their respective paths.

Adapted from Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, On Swift Horses opens on Julius (Elordi), a Korean War veteran hitchhiking in a surprisingly brutal California winter. He’s headed to the home of his brother, Lee (Will Poulter), and Lee’s wife, Muriel (Edgar-Jones), with the intention of restarting his life. From the moment Muriel and Julius lock eyes, there’s a spark. Is it attraction? Rivalry? A secret? Their emotional dependence on each other gets clearer as they’re pushed further and further apart. Lee and Muriel move to San Diego to kick-start their own American dream. Julius goes to Las Vegas to make money his own way. But our heroes feel a constant pull toward each other that leads to a stirring climax.

“The first scenes that we filmed were the scenes we had together, so we got all of that done with—when we were apart, we had put the groundwork in,” Edgar-Jones says. Quietly, Elordi then chimes in: “I believe Taylor Swift calls it an invisible string.”

On Swift Horses examines journeys of self-discovery and connection for LGBTQ+ people at a time when they had to be taken in secret. Though Julius has a strong sense of who he is, he feels a terror in expressing it, having experienced violence and betrayal all his life. He’s a kind of classic Western loner, solving his problems by jumping from scheme to scheme.

“I just watched Paul Newman’s movies and tried to build a voice around the way that he spoke, and movement around the way he moved—particularly in Hud, because he has a great sensitivity in his steely output there,” Elordi says. He’d also gone nearly straight from filming Priscilla, in which he played Elvis Presley, to On Swift Horses. “It was helpful because a lot of the prep for that film was historically the same, and the things that Elvis brought into the world were happening parallel to the times of [On Swift Horses]. And I’d spent a lot of time in Vegas as well.”

Julius lands in Vegas with a job to catch cheaters at a casino—he’s good at the gig because he knows exactly what to look for—and starts working alongside Henry (Diego Calva), a fellow hustler turned mole. They strike up a romance, living in secret in a nearby motel room, and eventually finding ways to start hustling together. Elordi and Calva, who broke out in 2022’s Babylon, develop a steamy sexual chemistry that includes several rich, emotional, and explicit love scenes. “He’s a real cool customer,” Elordi says of Calva. “We had a week of intensive [prep] in the motel room, and Dan gave us a lot of freedom to run around and to play and to find that love within those four walls.”

Muriel’s journey, by contrast, is one of gradual self-acceptance. She starts going out on her own to the racetrack after the big move, and successfully bets on horses. A rush runs through her that feels thrillingly unfamiliar. “I loved the connection between gambling and risk-taking, and pushing the boundaries of her desire and what she’s looking for,” Edgar-Jones says. “Muriel’s rebellion throughout the film is quite quiet, in the small ways in which she takes back her power by concealing things. A lot of what’s happening is behind closed doors.” This later extends to her encounter with Sandra (Sasha Calle), a new neighbor who feels radically out of time.

This isn’t to say Muriel’s marriage is in shambles. Part of the tension within her arc has to do with her husband’s continual expression of unconditional love. “It’s heartbreaking because he really loves her and he loves his brother, and this idea of the American dream is something he’s so grasping for,” Edgar-Jones says. “Breaking Will’s heart was quite hard to do because he’s just so lovable and effervescent.”

How do these parallel paths eventually converge? On Swift Horses fills in its specific, lyrical character study with fascinating details—both tragic and hopeful—regarding queer life in the midcentury West. (With ideal fashion, as well: “Every day, whenever the boys came in, I was like, I wish these high-waist trousers were still in,” Edgar-Jones says.) An inclusive motel in Southern California binds Muriel and Julius, and as their respective deceptions catch up with them—the former in her marriage, the latter in his job—they’re left to go on the run in their own ways. For Julius, this included some high-wire horseback riding. “They let me do some of it—that was cool,” Elordi says. “Everything is 10 times more epic when you’re on the back of a horse.”

Helming his first feature in more than two decades, Emmy winner Minahan (Halston, Fellow Travelers) realizes the story of On Swift Horses as an intrinsically postwar American saga, if also uniquely specific to outsiders unable to fully live as themselves. “This story is wonderfully queer,” Edgar-Jones says. “Dan was really helpful in guiding that and making sure that we were also being authentic to that period and that experience.”

Adds Elordi, “It’s a sprawling, epic, nongeneric love story—and I think that theme is entirely universal for every single person on the planet.”