Jeremy Allen White immersed himself in culinary boot camps to prepare for The Bear, but as the acclaimed drama heads into its season 4 next month, the 34-year-old confesses that the flame under his own stovetop has dimmed.
The actor once threw himself into cooking classes and real-life restaurant shifts to land the role of obsessive chef Carmy Berzatto, yet his enthusiasm has waned as Season 4 approaches.
Asked whether friends still expect him to whip up meals, White told Extra, “It’s not happening as much anymore. I don’t know what happened there… Maybe everybody learned…”
“When I was prepping to do the first season, I went to culinary school, I was working in kitchens, it was such a big part of my life, and so people were asking a lot, and now I feel more confident in the kitchen.”
He still spends a short “sharpening-up” week before each new shoot but is no longer consumed by the prep. “I spend a week kind of sharpening up before I go to set, but it’s not as all-encompassing,” he explained. “I think there was a period where I was really trying to do it all the time, and now I’m able to relax a little bit.”
White’s next challenge is musical rather than culinary: he will portray Bruce Springsteen in the forthcoming biopic 'Deliver Me from Nowhere'. The actor signed on only after learning he was The Boss’s preferred choice.
“Scott Cooper, our director, called me early on,” White recalled. “I was like, ‘This would be an honor, but let me think about it; I don’t sing, I don’t play the guitar.’ And then he was like, ‘Bruce has said you’re his choice,’ and I thought, ‘Okay, I can’t stand in his way.’”
"And so, I just got to work. I got working with a vocal coach, guitar, started reading everything I could about him, spent a lot of time with him."
"He was really, really generous with his time and yeah, we finished filming in January. It's gonna come out soon."