Young actor Jeremy Allen White, star of the TV series “Bear”, celebrates his 35th birthday on February 17. He continues to conquer Hollywood, was awarded the Emmy for “Best Actor in a Comedy”. We tell you about his difficult path to fame.
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American actor Jeremy Allen White starred in the TV series “Shameless” for exactly 10 years as the wayward Lip Gallagher. But it was one season of “The Bear” that made the 32-year-old actor a star with three million followers on Instagram and brought him all the key awards of the season – the Golden Globe, the Critics' Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Award.
“The Bear” is a real hit and a discovery of 2022. The series tells the story of a young chef named Carmi, a winner of prestigious awards, who returns home to Chicago from New York, where he built a successful career. The fact is that his brother committed suicide and left Carmi a sandwich bar with a lot of debt and dissatisfied staff. Carmi is a charismatic, talented and constantly very tense guy – takes control of The Beef in his own hands. Caught in a quagmire of unpaid bills and a team that does not really trust him, Carmi wants to burn it all down – but a little less than save this restaurant.
“Bear”
Jeremy Allen White, whose brutal charisma reminds us of Al Pacino, Sean Penn, or, for the new generation, Adam Driver, seems to have been born for this role. Jeremy's face is definitely familiar to you: since 2011, he has played one of the key roles in the popular TV series “Shameless” – about the dysfunctional Chicago family of Frank Gallagher and his six children. His character Lip Gallagher is an incredibly interesting character: the eldest brother in the family, capable of exact sciences, very intelligent, but prone to mischief, alcohol and drugs. In the end, Lip enters the institute, begins to study robotics and shows his brilliant talents, but an affair with a teacher and hooliganism lead to the fact that the guy is expelled.
“Shameless”
Jeremy Allen White, the son of New York actors, began his career at age 13, performing on stage and in episodes of popular TV shows like Law & Order. He signed on to star in Shameless at age 18 and essentially dedicated more than 10 years of his life to the show. Shameless had a huge fan base that allowed the show to run for 10 seasons, but it still limited the young actor in his roles.
Jeremy White in the movie “Who Didn't Hide”
In an interview with Esquire, the actor says: “I'm very grateful for Shameless and the fact that that success was gradual. We were popular enough to continue, and then the show moved to Netflix and we became more recognizable. I joined this project when I was 18, and I feel like if the show had been a huge success right away, that could have been a problem. And with “The Bear” – I think it reaches a different audience. And I'm lucky that now I get to be in the same room with directors and writers that I really admire.”
“The Bear” was released in the summer of 2022 and instantly became a sensation. Critics adore the series, and the main character Carmi became an Internet star: Instagram and TikTok users discuss his T-shirts, sexy tattoos, and disheveled blond curls. Moreover, the series even influenced the popularity of Italian beef sandwiches, which are constantly being prepared in the frame. Interestingly, the restaurant The Beef itself is copied from the real Chicago cafe Mr. Beef – the author of the series Christopher Storer was a frequent guest there and was friends with the owner's son.
In preparation for the role, Jeremy immersed himself in the restaurant industry and underwent intensive culinary training in a number of world-class kitchens. The actor admits that he didn't expect “The Bear” to be a sensation, but he gave it his all in the role. “I just felt like I had so much to prove after being on Shameless for so long. I had to take the opportunity,” he says in an interview with American Vogue.
While critics focus on the artistic merits of this black comedy, Jeremy White's fans spend hours discussing his character Camry's tattoos on social media. Indeed, the chef's arms and shoulders are covered with stylish tattoos that people usually get at a young age. Interestingly, the actor himself and his friend, tattoo artist Ben Shields, invented special ink to create these tattoos – because the chef's tattoos are not real, but drawn on. As for the actor himself, he also has tattoos – in honor of his mother and father and his two daughters, whom he raises with actress Addison Timlin.
“The Bear” captivated the audience: in addition to the awards already mentioned, the series was included in the ranking of the best TV shows by The Guardian, where it was called “the best production drama since Mad Men.” Jeremy White also received the level of attention that he deserved all these years: he is shooting for Vogue and Esquire, has signed advertising contracts with major global brands, and most importantly, has interesting acting offers.
In 2024, Jeremy Allen White became the face of a new advertising campaign for Calvin Klein. The photos, in which he poses against the backdrop of his native New York and demonstrates not only Calvin Klein underwear, but also a perfect body, literally drove the Internet crazy. The actor himself, who is always concise and sincere in interviews, in his slightly shy style comments on this shooting very restrainedly: “We just did what we had to do.”
Among Jeremy Allen White's new projects that deserve attention are the sports drama “Iron Claw” and “Springsteen: Save Me from the Unknown” about guitarist Bruce Springsteen. In 2026, White will release two films at once – “The Mandalorian and Grogu” and “Social Payback.”