The Bear actor Jeremy Allen White is best known for his television roles, but he has been starring in an impressive number of films over the past several years, most notably the 2023 pro wrestling biopic The Iron Claw, in which he portrays the tragic life of famed pro wrestling champion Kerry Von Erich, who died by suicide at the age of 33 in 1993.
In an interview with British GQ, White talks about having to give himself space between the emotional heaviness of his characters and his own life.
White notes in the interview that his role in The Iron Claw is the first time he ever portrayed a real-life individual on screen. Regarding how he separates a character’s misery from his own personal feelings, White shares, “I’m not a method actor, but what I do try to do is stay close to a feeling that I think is appropriate. And if your character’s miserable all the time and you’re trying to stay really close to something that’s very scary and isolating and misunderstood, then is there a little bleed over? Sure. I’m trying to trick myself into thinking I’m more like this person than I actually am. Sometimes you can get pretty good at tricking yourself, and that can be a bummer.”
