“Yes, chef.” After Jeremy Allen White spent a decade on cult hit Shameless, his breakout was born with just two words. He’s won Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards for his performance as the fiery Carmy on FX’s The Bear, season two of which will premiere to a fully booked—and very hungry—house. The actor, who appears on our 2023 Hollywood cover, has since been filming Apple’s sci-fi drama Fingernails and shape-shifting as the late wrestler Kerry Von Erich in A24’s The Iron Claw. Ahead, excerpts from a conversation about longtime dreams and sudden fame.
Vanity Fair: Your real-life trajectory echoes Carmy’s in that the first season of The Bear was made without knowing if it’d be successful. The stakes for season two are higher, just as they will be for Carmy’s new restaurant. How do you wrap your head around that?
Jeremy Allen White: This is all really exciting, but I am a little bit nervous about going back to shoot the second season because so many understandings of this work we did are now being pushed on us. If you read too many reviews, this thing that was once ours has had so many ideas put on it. I’m hopeful we can shut the world out a little bit.
It feels like any time a new photo of you comes out, be it from The Bear or a photo shoot, there are a lot of excited memes and comments. How do you process that, if at all?
I really don’t pay too much attention to it. My mom tells me what they’re saying on Twitter, which is nice. I’ve been acting since I was 18. I was on this show [Shameless] for 11 years that was popular, but I wasn’t getting as much attention then as I am now. I feel very lucky that everything’s been this gradual because I’ve been able to find my footing already. I feel really bad for a young actor or somebody who just hasn’t had much experience when all of a sudden they break through; it could be more overwhelming in that case. I probably wouldn’t have done well if I were single or without children [he shares daughters Ezer and Dolores with actor Addison Timlin] or just younger and dumber. If you don’t have a foundation outside of your career, that can be a lonely existence.
Clothing by Ferragamo; boots by Alessandro Vasini; watch by Omega; rings by Bulgari (right hand) and David Yurman (left middle finger).PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVEN KLEIN; STYLED BY PATTI WILSON.
Does that impact your approach to social media—what you want to protect versus share with your followers?
I don’t understand my relationship with it. It’s scary. There were times that I’ve posted pictures of my children on there, and then I felt like, Oh, maybe I shouldn’t do that, but I’m so proud of them, so why wouldn’t I share them? I’ve had this back-and-forth, and I’ve landed in a place where I think it should be used mostly for either holding up my friends—and projects that they’re doing—or just promoting the work that I do. Because anything beyond that…I just don’t understand what version of myself I’m supposed to be putting or not putting out there. So, keep it simple.
I imagine that eating at restaurants is a different experience for you since The Bear. Can you go to, say, Rolo’s as you would before?
I go to restaurants the same amount. I haven’t been home that much since the show came out. I guess I’ve been eating a lot of room service. We were filming The Iron Claw in Baton Rouge where there were only 10 restaurants in walking distance from my apartment. I went to all of them, and everybody at them was really lovely. It got to the point where if I hadn’t been to one in a long time, the staff there would call another restaurant, and they’d say, “Jeremy’s been to this restaurant three times.” And the other staff would say, “Tell him to come back to this one.” I felt beloved from that community. It’s easy to get a reservation, and everybody’s really nice when I get there.
Both The Bear and The Iron Claw have required you to learn new skills. Do you enjoy that transformative part of the process?
