Jeremy Allen White Opens Up About Fatherhood in Rare Interview
Jeremy Allen White discussed the challenges of being a sought-after Hollywood actor while raising his two daughters.
The two-time Emmy Award-winning star of The Bear has daughters Ezer Billie, 6, and Dolores Wild, 4, with his ex-wife, Addison Timlin. (The couple separated in 2023 after three years of marriage, with Timlin filing for divorce in May of that year.)
White’s latest high-profile role was portraying legendary rocker Bruce Springsteen in the biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, which explores the musician’s struggles with his record label while creating the iconic 1982 album Nebraska. (The Scott Cooper-directed film is based on author Warren Zanes’ 2023 book Deliver Me from Nowhere and features a lead performance from Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau.)
In an interview with London’s The Times, White, 34, revealed that the intense demands of playing Springsteen affected various aspects of his life, including fatherhood.
“I feel like I’m ‘pain for hire,’” he joked. “Like I’m getting paid to put myself in painful places. On The Bear, it’s not like I’m smashing walls and yelling in my closet. But I tap into that energy, which is uncomfortable — and filming the Bruce movie was incredibly hard. I was isolated, far from my children, and didn’t travel home often. It affected my well-being, and when I finished, I thought, ‘There must be a better way.’”
White acknowledged feeling increased “scrutiny [with] something happening in my personal life that has garnered interest” since the success of The Bear, but he strives to maintain a grounded approach with his children.
“Eventually, people will stop following you when they realize all you do is pick up your kids from school and come home. My life — my everyday life — is quite simple,” he stated.
He compared his daily routine to any other parent when not on a movie set.
“Take today, for example. I made breakfast for my daughters, took them to school, and later, I’ll pick them up and prepare dinner,” he shared.
White quipped that, unlike the talented chef character he plays on The Bear, he only has “seven dinner recipes I excel at and three that my children enjoy.”
“You do the prep, and then they take a bite and just ask for chicken nuggets,” he joked.
Historically, White has been private about his personal life, but he made a rare comment about the end of his marriage to Timlin, 34, following her filing for divorce in 2023. He told British GQ that 2023 has been an “insane” year filled with “high highs and terribly low lows.”
“Given everything in my personal life, I thought, ‘Let’s just take a break, and maybe I won’t work for a while,’” he explained in November 2023. “I made the decision to not work for the remainder of the year and focus on being with my daughters, taking things slower.”
Following his divorce from Timlin, White briefly dated Rosalía before parting ways with the Spanish singer, 33, in mid-2024. Despite this, the actor expressed admiration for Rosalía in an October interview when asked about his favorite Spanish music artist.
“Rosa, Rosalía, I love so much, she’s wonderful. She’s flamenco,” White told Spain’s Los 40 radio station. “Otherwise, no, nothing else comes to mind right now.”
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is set to premiere in U.S. theaters on October 24.
