Jeremy Allen White is best known for his major role in the critically praised FX series The Bear. His portrayal of the talented but troubled chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto has earned him a 2023 Primetime Emmy Award nomination, as well as a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Critics Choice Award nominations.
White’s breakthrough role was as Lip Gallagher in the 2011 Showtime television series Shameless.
White was cast in the series nearly immediately after graduating from high school and stayed with the show for its full 10-year run. He’ll appear in two future films: Fingernails in November and The Iron Claw in December.
Early Life
Jeremy Allen White was born in New York City on February 17, 1991. Before White was born, his parents, Eloise Zeigler and Richard White, were both theater actors who relocated to New York City in their early twenties to seek Broadway careers. White’s father developed a business shooting depositions after having children, while his mother worked in education. “I’d always known that [acting] was something they were always very interested in,” White said of his parents.
White grew up in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens area and was always interested in the arts. He studied ballet, jazz, and tap dance throughout elementary school, but by the time he reached middle school, he was dissatisfied with the lack of rigor in his middle school dance program. “I didn’t consider it serious enough for me.” “I was so obnoxious,” he admitted. Instead, White pursued acting, taking part in cattle calls for film, theater, and commercial jobs, which eventually led to him gaining an agent.
White wanted to drop out of high school to pursue acting full-time, saying, “I wasn’t a bad kid, I just hated school. I knew it wasn’t going to help me.” His parents insisted he stay until graduation, but as a compromise, he was allowed to intern at a casting agency on the side. Following graduation, White attended the famous Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen district.
Early Career and Shameless
White’s first acting roles were in the 2006 coming-of-age film Beautiful Ohio and the following year’s legal drama series Conviction. “My identity was really, really wrapped up in my profession,” White recalled during his early acting career. Nothing was going good if that wasn’t going well. Everything felt terrific if that was going smoothly.” White remembers feeling highly self-conscious while viewing his performance in the film Afterschool (2008) at the Cannes Film Festival when he was 17, stating he tended to be “too critical of myself and drive myself crazy.”
He was cast in his breakout role on the Showtime comedy-drama series Shameless almost immediately after graduating from high school. White was part of an ensemble group depicting an impoverished, dysfunctional family in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood. He portrayed Phillip “Lip” Gallagher, the eldest son of the main character, Frank Gallagher, played by William H. Macy. White’s character was a very educated straight-A student who struggles with alcoholism and devises a variety of scams to assist financially support the family, including selling beer and weed from an ice cream truck and taking SAT examinations for other students.
White traveled to Los Angeles at the age of 18 for the role, before he could even drive. “I didn’t have a community outside of the show when I first got there, and I felt super isolated,” he added, adding that there was “something kind of romantic” about the loneliness of that time. White couldn’t watch Shameless since he didn’t have cable, so he had to view it illegally.
during him, performing on the show during the full 10-year run, from 2011 to 2021, was a transforming experience. “I was learning a lot about how to behave as a person outside of an actor,” said White. “We learned how to be, I think, decent people on that show, too.” He stated that “having Macy watching over you at all times makes you try that much harder to impress.” For his work in the show’s fourth season, White was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the Critics’ Choice Television Awards in 2014.
Although the series was enjoyable, White expressed relief when it finished, saying, “I love Shameless so much.” I adored everyone who was a part of it, and the experience was unforgettable. But I’m not sure if shows are supposed to last that long.” White also expressed reservations about his future acting career after leaving Shameless.”There was a period where I stopped feeling like an actor, and I started feeling like I was just here to do this show,” he told me. “I was in an awful mental space. When it was about to end, I wondered if I was simply an extra on this show. What else is there to say? “Do you think I’m an actor?”
The Bear
During his tenure on Shameless, White acted in various films, including Twelve (2010), Bad Turn Worse (2013), Movie 43 (2013), After Everything (2018), and The Rental (2020). He also appeared in the Amazon Prime Video thriller series Homecoming in 2018, alongside Julia Roberts and Bobby Cannavale.
White was cast as the lead in the FX comedy-drama series The Bear in 2022. He plays Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a talented but troubled New York City chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to take over a failing sandwich shop given to him by his brother after he commits himself.
White was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in The Bear in July 2023. He previously won Best Actor in a Comedy Series at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Critics Choice Awards in 2023.
Upcoming Movie Roles: Fingernails and The Iron Claw
White’s success in The Bear elevated his status and notoriety, leading to commercial appearances alongside high-profile performers such as Matt Damon, Zoe Saldaa, and Ludacris. He played a lonely mechanic in Christos Nikou’s 2023 independent film Fremont, filmed and co-written by Christos Nikou for Apple TV+.
White will star in two upcoming films: the science-fiction film Fingernails, which will be released on Apple TV+ and in select cinemas on November 3, 2023, and the biographical sports film The Iron Claw, which will be released in theaters on December 22, 2023.
The Iron Claw tells the story of the Von Erich professional wrestling family. Kerry Von Erich (played by White) is the brother of Kevin Von Erich (played by Zac Efron). White was trained by professional wrestler Chavo Guerrero Jr., and he had to ingest a lot of food to bulk up for the role. “To be honest, you don’t feel great,” White admitted of the amount of food he consumed for the role. “Trying to get that big, it’s no way to live.”
Wife and Children
White married actor Addison Timlin in October 2019. They first met in high school; Timlin later wrote to him on Instagram: “When we were 14 years old and I saw you perform for the first time in drama class, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.” They also co-starred in the 2008 film Afterschool. In May 2023, Timlin filed for divorce.
White and Timlin have two daughters named Ezer and Dolores “Dolly” born in 2018 and 2020, respectively. “I learn a lot from them,” White said in a 2022 interview. “I feel like in a lot of ways, they’re teaching me all the time how to be better: how to be better to them; how to be better to my wife, my friends, my parents, my sister.” Actor Dakota Johnson is the godmother of the two girls.
