How Jeremy Allen White Prepped for His Calvin Klein Underwear Campaign

Photographer Mert Alas

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.”

Even with that preparation, White was his characteristically anxious self before the shoot. “In my head, I was just like, I can't see myself on a billboard. I shouldn't be here,” he said. “Just real imposter syndrome.” To prepare, he ran, jumped rope, and did calisthenics. Ate plenty of fish. All the things one does before everyone on the planet sees them in their underwear. The week before the shoot, White got sick—“a chest thing,” he says—and had to cram in a last-minute run and endless pushups the night before.

The resulting photos show no ill effects of that one-week layoff. Michaelangelo couldn’t have carved abs better than the ones popping off White’s torso as he slouches way back on a terracotta sofa or gives the camera his best smize.

The actor has mostly resisted lingering over the photos, but his favorite is a black-and-white image featuring him in one of the brand’s white tees. “There's a shot where I'm wearing, I guess, more clothes,” he said. “They have really great thin white tees.” (This explains the outfits he’s been wearing during many of his recent press appearances.” Elsewhere, White is wearing CK’s regular campaign stars: the brand’s undergarments, some with the logo slightly reworked to be bigger than ever along the waistband.

In the campaign images, as White lounges on the rooftop in his underwear, the Manhattan skyline lingers prominently in the background. Soon, he’ll be a fixture of the city’s scaffolding, blown up to massive proportions on the brand’s famous Houston Street billboard—a symbol of both White’s boiling-hot career and, just maybe, Manhattan itself for young visiting Brooklynites.

See the full imagery from White's Spring 2024 Calvin Klein campaign below.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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