Jeremy Allen White’s net worth in 2024 is higher than ever and continues to rise thanks to his star turn in the critically acclaimed dramedy The Bear—and it’s largely because he’s not afraid to say no to things he doesn’t want to do as an artist.
“I had a meeting for a kind of Marvel-y movie, and I had an attitude,” he admitted to British GQ in 2023. “I think I played it all wrong.”
He recalled telling the executives, ” ‘Tell me about why should I do your movie.’ They were like, ‘F—k you,’, and I was like, ‘Right on.’” He admitted that while “really good filmmakers” and “really good actors” star in superhero movies, “I am confused at how the pinnacle of an actor’s career has ended up in that place … I played it the way I wanted to play it.”
That said, while he’s free to reject projects now, he didn’t always have that privilege, which he says helps him relate to Chef Carmy.
“When I was a younger actor, my identity was really, really wrapped up in my profession,” he told GQ. “If that wasn’t going well, nothing was going well. If that was going well, everything felt really fantastic.”
While he’s out of that mindset for the most part now, you have to admit that things probably feel pretty fantastic for him today. Find out how Jeremy Allen White became famous and how much he’s earned so far.
Related: Everything to Know About The Bear Season 3
How did Jeremy Allen White become famous?
Born and raised in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood, White’s parents are former theater actors. He told Fault in 2012 that growing up, he participated in sports, but that his first love was dance.
“I liked the performance of it. I found that I was able to focus while performing, which is something that I found difficult to do especially as a child, even still to this day,” he said.
He started acting in theater when he was 13, and while the repetitiveness of stage performances can bore some actors, it’s actually his favorite part.
“The repetition of theater and doing the same thing over and over in front of people—you build confidence that way,” he said. “I think for television and film, the bummer about it is you sit around and then you have five minutes to make something happen. I leave set every day just uncertain if we did what we were supposed to do.”
White attended the Professional Performing Arts School in New York City, nabbing some of his first screen roles during his term: In 2006, when White was 15, he appeared in the film Beautiful Ohio and in an episode of Conviction, and appeared in two episodes of Law & Order, an episode of Law & Order: SVU and several small films within the next three years.
When he was 18, he moved to Los Angeles alone and got to work relatively quickly. White’s first recurring mainstream role came in 2011 with Shameless, in which he starred as Phillip “Lip” Gallagher for nearly a decade—though it wasn’t the role he wanted initially.