'Deliver Me From Nowhere,' Oscars, 'The Bear'

There is a lot to unpack with the very busy Jeremy Allen White, and we cover it all in depth on this special edition of my Deadline video series, The Actor’s Side.

As he is about to start shooting the fifth season of The Bear, we talk about how long he wants to keep doing the show that has won him three Golden Globes — and is currently a nominee again — three SAG Awards, two Critics Choice Awards and of course two Emmys for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. It is a reasonable question because he spent a whopping 11 seasons playing Lip Gallagher on Shameless, which he joined when he was 18 and ended when he was 30 (!). Whether he has 11 seasons in him as Carmen Benzatto, he won’t say, but White does tell me the most important thing is to keep the quality up, something The Bear has done consistently.

In between shooting that show, he has also won great acclaim on the big screen playing real-life icons of different stripes including wrestler Kerry Von Erich, whose ultimately tragic story he portrayed in The Iron Claw, and now in a stunning leading role as Bruce Springsteen in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, for which he is also Golden Globe nominated as Lead Actor in a Motion Picture Drama (he is one of the rare stars who has two GG nominations this year). We talk about the challenge of playing such a well-known star when he is standing right behind the camera day after day watching you do it. He talks in detail about his relationship with The Boss — who has seen the film 13 times and counting — throughout the process.

White also talks about his own insecurity in moving from the long-running role in Shameless and knowing he had to do something to challenge himself, something he found just three months later when he shot the pilot for The Bear. There also was the question and the risk of doing his own singing — he never had done this before — as Springsteen and how it was accomplished.

We also get the 411 on his upcoming projects including playing Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horowitz in Aaron Sorkin’s currently shooting continuation of The Social Network called The Social Reckoning, which also stars Oscar winner Mikey Madison as a whistleblower on Facebook, and his Springsteen co-star Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, though they haven’t had any scenes together. He tells me he is excited to be joining the Star Wars universe in a voice role as Rotta the Hutt in Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu, as well as starring opposite Elvis Oscar nominee Austin Butler in the thriller Enemies, an experience where the two stars traded stories about playing true rock immortals and how they compared.

Finally, he talks about the surreal experience of doing the Calvin Klein underwear ads and seeing his picture on billboards everywhere, a unique opportunity that oddly brought him closer to his kids when he was out of town for work.

To watch our conversation and to get the “actor’s side” of things from Jeremy Allen White, just click the link above.

Join me every week during Oscar season for new episodes of The Actor’s Side and Behind The Lens.

‘Deliver Me From Nowhere,’ Oscars, ‘The Bear’

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