Jeremy Allen White says he’s learnt to keep his thoughts to himself after a single-word comment he made went viral.
The Shameless star, 32, confessed he was bowled over by the reaction from fans after he offered his take on a Calvin Klein lingerie shoot starring Euphoria actress Alexa Demie.
Back in August, photographers Inez and Vinoodh uploaded the video campaign to Instagram, prompting White to write simply: “Wow”.
Fans swiftly seized on his assessment, which racked up more than 3,140 likes and 105 comments.
“Horny on main, chef,” wrote one joker, in a nod to White’s iconic role in The Bear.
“Chef, join the line,” added another.
“Sir, get a burner account PLEASE,” said a third.
Meanwhile, others shared their hopes that the two silver screen favourites would get together, with one writing: “Please god let this happen.
The 32-year-old addressed the debacle in an interview with GQ, published on Tuesday.
He admitted he quickly called his publicist about the viral response to his remark and told her: “I just need to shut the f**k up. I just shouldn’t say anything.”
“And she was like, ‘Kind of’,” he recalled.
Still, the award-winning actor insisted that his “wow” was not intended as a public come-on to Demie.
Rather, he was innocently expressing admiration for the work of Inez and Vinoodh.
Besides, White – a newly-divorced father-of-two – clearly shuns the image of ladies’ man or heartthrob.
Indeed, in February, he took his mum as his date to the SAG awards, where he won in the category of Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series.
He also spent months hanging out with the co-stars of his latest film, The Iron Claw, enjoying some almost comically masculine activities.
White, Zach Efron and Harris Dickinson play brothers in the biopic about a family of wrestlers in the 1980s.
The trio had to beef up considerably for the film, and spent nearly all of their time in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, doing one of two activities: eating and working out, according to GQ.
“Jeremy is the f**king man,” Efron told White’s interviewer Cam Wolf in an email.
“His presence is electric on and off camera. He motivated me to take the role as seriously as possible; we pushed each other to be better both on and off set.”
Perhaps people should learn not to take every comment White makes so seriously, though.
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