No one is doing the sexy scumbag thing quite like Jeremy Allen White. Shameless stans have been trying to tell us that for more than a decade. But this summer their unwavering thirst is finally paying off. Having wrapped an 11-season stint as Lip Gallagher on Showtime’s debauched family dramedy last year, White is now the breakout star of FX’s juicy restaurant production The Bear. And in his second act playing Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto—the talented but tortured young chef at the heart of the hit series—White once again manages to make misery look sexier than sanity ever has.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
White’s portrayal of Carmy, and Lip before that, draws upon a long pop culture lineage of sleazeball idolatry. Think Ryan Gosling in A Place Beyond the Pines. Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck. Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems. Machine Gun Kelly in, uh, real life. Perpetually embroiled in some kind of self-inflicted crisis or crusade, there’s something undeniably hot about watching a man commit to suffering if nothing else.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
An ardent wife guy and father of two IRL, White is charmingly self-conscious about the horny tweets his performances always seem to elicit. And the actor was quick to point out in an interview with GQ that Carmy’s single-minded fixation on keeping his late brother’s failing restaurant afloat leaves “no room for love.” At odds with the horny chatter surrounding it, The Bear is largely devoid of sexual tension, unless you’re willing to count Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney nonfatally stabbing Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Richie in the butt or a harrowing flashback in which Joel McHale verbally degrades White’s character in the kitchen of an unspecified New York fine-dining establishment.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
But the allure of Jeremy Allen White was never really about him anyway. It’s about the men he reminds us of. The guys we’ve loved and ruined our lives over countless times before. The wayward college boyfriends with indelible smirks, the service industry dirtbags, the sad boys with credit card debt and dysfunctional families, the townies you spent whole summers chasing only to realize you were wasting your time. They won’t be good for your health or your bank account. But it doesn’t cost a thing to admire them from afar.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
