As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, on the rare occasions he ventured into Lower Manhattan to visit his best friend, Jeremy Allen White was awed by the sheer enormity of the city. The buildings towered, the streets were wider, and even the billboards seemed bigger. “You couldn’t help but look at the [Calvin Klein] billboard,” White told GQ during a recent phone call. “It’s so massive. I always associated it – and still associate it – with New York City itself.” Now White, stripped down to Calvin Klein’s iconic skivvies, is the larger-than-life star of the brand’s new Spring 2024 campaign from photographer Mert Alas.
The campaign is just the latest box White has checked on his ascension to the top of Hollywood. The 32-year-old actor clocked 11 seasons on the beloved dark comedy Shameless before his role as Carmen Berzatto on The Bear made him one of the most sought-after actors in the industry. Now, posing on a billboard in his Calvins only serves to further his moment in one stripped-down, six-packed swoop. “They’ve done such a beautiful job with these campaigns for so long,” White said. “They always get really interesting people.”
Now White is one of those interesting people himself – even though a Calvin Klein campaign was never something he’d imagined doing. “I didn’t see this in my future necessarily,” he said, sheepishly. “Who grows up thinking, Yeah, I’ll be in a Calvin Klein campaign?”
But the unexpected opportunity landed at the exact right time for White. He had built up a rock-solid fitness base after filming The Iron Claw the previous winter – though he’d slimmed back down considerably after putting on major poundage to play wrestler Kerry Von Erich. Ultimately, though, the movie provided more of a psychological than a physical advantage. “I was used to running around in front of large groups of people in my underwear because of [The Iron Claw],” White said. “So maybe there was some mental and emotional prep from that job.”