Hollywood has a new favourite himbo.

In late October, actor Jacob Elordi, dressed in an effortlessly chic but probably highly curated leather jacket cargo pant combination, pondered the books on a Sydney Airport store shelf.

He bent down and read the back covers, all while he had another little book in his cargo pant pocket. It seemed like he ultimately decided on Prima Facie by Suzie Miller, an Australian book about the price sexual assault victims pay for speaking out and the system that sets them up to fail. 

Because of course he did.

Everything about these paparazzi images screamed 'set up', but whether that is actually true or not is all part of the fun. 

Everyone saw the photos of the Tall Guy from Euphoria and pop culture's newest Elvis Presley with a book in his cargo pocket, pushing his Louis Vuitton travel bag through the airport and thought, yes, that is exactly what we need right now. Something has shifted, and now Hollywood has a new favourite himbo.

Right off the bat I want to make it clear, I say himbo with nothing but love and affection. A himbo is a good-looking, silly, goofy man. Maybe they say things like "my favourite thing about the movie is it feels like a movie" or earnestly make friendship bracelets in an attempt to woo the woman of their dreams. They are loveable, well-intentioned and crucially, non-threatening.

In preparation for his press tour for Priscilla, Sophie Coppola's Priscilla Presley biopic (the film has a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement, meaning it can promote despite the ongoing actors' strike) in which he plays Elvis in support of lead Cailee Spaeny's Priscilla, Elordi faced a hurdle on that last point. 

For the last few years, the Australian has been best known as Nate Jacobs on Euphoria, a character that is extremely threatening. Obviously, a TV character is just a TV character, but as an Extremely Tall, good-looking, kind of mysterious dude, it would be easy to take Elordi in real life and project Nate's terrible personality onto him. 

That's harder to do when in real life he's namedropping Lilo & Stitch in interviews without a hint of irony, reading feminist literature and wearing pastel yellow cardigans.

It's hard to imagine that someone on his team didn't consider this – and the fact that the last guy to play Presley was just a tad bit intense about it – and came up with a book-reading, cartoon-watching, knitwear-wearing delight.

Curated or not, himbo Elordi has shone bright.

During this promo tour he has done much to captivate, including describing Kylie Minogue, quite rightly, as a "national treasure", stating that Brad Pitt in Troy was his first celebrity crush, revealing that he prepared for the role by eating a lot of bacon and... well, wearing cardigans. I'm personally really into the cardigans.

Bless him and bless this little yellow number. Image: NBC.

Perhaps the greatest, most publicised moment of himboism came when Elordi appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and revealed how much he knew about Presley. You know, one of the most famous pop culture icons of ALL time.

"The most I knew of Elvis was in Lilo & Stitch," he said.

This is genuinely hilarious. The man read the entire Priscilla script imagining this:

Obsessed. Image: Disney.

It's a beautiful thing and I imagine Austin Butler fell to his knees when he heard.

Of course, the praise of Elordi's charming promo tour is elevated by Butler's own portrayal of The King, which became comically Too Much. He spoke like he was from Mississippi throughout his entire Oscars campaign, despite being a quintessential Californian surfer kid for the first 27 years of his life. He said he hadn't seen his family in three years because of the role. He was the most method actor to ever method act.

It was silly, but in an alarmingly self-serious way. Himbo Elordi would never.

Himbos have always been a fun part of pop culture. Think Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise, Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading, Brad Pitt in... you get the point. Most of Matthew McConaughey's rom-com roles were himbos. Fred from Scooby-Doo. Nate from Gossip Girl. Josh from Younger. Jason from The Good Place. Just Ken's entire premise is himbo. In a particularly unhinged corner of the internet, someone even listed Bob the Builder and to be honest, I get it. 

In recent years, they seem to have taken off in real life too. The new generation of leading men are basically all himbos. Tom Holland snapping pics of Zendaya like he isn't also really famous is peak himbo energy. I will forever argue that Timothée Chalamet, below his 'I'm in Greta Gerwig films' indie cred, is a gigantic himbo. Elordi and his cardigan now gladly join the ranks.

Perhaps our elevation of these types of men is a response to the years of tales about bad men doing bad things (which, to be fair, still persists). Maybe it is a natural compliment to a pop culture landscape dominated by female-skewed phenomenons like Barbie and Taylor Swift. And speaking of Barbie, it's about time we celebrated the leading men who are actually all cool to be the supporting character too – while endlessly hyping up their leading ladies.

Himbos are kind of the ideal, with cardigan or without cardigan (but hopefully, with cardigan).

Feature image: Getty.