Look of the Week: Jeremy Allen White drops his pants for the New York skyline

(CNN) — Whether it be thanks to his big screen projects, breathless paparazzi photos — like those of him pounding the pavement in barely-there shorts, or spending a wholesome afternoon at the farmer’s market — or tabloid headlines, the appetite for actor Jeremy Allen White is, at present, seemingly unquenchable.

While the Emmy-nominated actor was made in Chicago (the location of his widely-lauded drama series “The Bear”), White was born in New York. So it’s only right, then, that he’s given his hometown the gift of his latest, internet-breaking moment: an underwear ad campaign that marks his debut for Calvin Klein.

Shot by photographer Mert Alas, the campaign imagery sees White frolicking on a sun-soaked rooftop either shirtless, or pantless, and sometimes both. (In all cases, he’s wearing what Calvin Klein describes as its “most emblematic” underwear.) When he is wearing a shirt, it’s a classic white tank top — à la Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Rock Hudson and more recently, Paul Mescal. Such stark styling often acts as a litmus test for a would-be heartthrob, leaving nowhere to hide. If you can pull off a plain tank (which White does, literally, exactly five seconds into the campaign video) after all, you can pull off anything.

But heavy the head that wears the crown, or the tank top. “I didn’t see this in my future necessarily,” White told GQ, oh-so-modestly, of the shoot. “Who grows up thinking, ‘Yeah, I’ll be in a Calvin Klein campaign?’”

He made it, however. And he’s following in the footsteps of names such as Michael B. Jordan, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jamie Dornan, BTS’ Jung Kook and Jacob Elordi, to name just a few, all of whom the brand has helped frame as symbols of typical — and yet exceptional — desirable masculinity.

Similarly, portrayals of — sometimes toxic — masculinity is White’s bread and butter. In “The Bear,” he plays a tortured, short-tempered (but soft-hearted) chef; his latest gig is A24’s “The Iron Claw” — a pumped-up biopic of the 1980s professional wrestling brothers Kevin, Kerry, David and Michael Von Erich. Both White and his co-star Zac Efron have spoken about the intense physical training required for their roles, including in White’s case, loading on 40 pounds of muscle, according to GQ — some shedded before his Calvin Klein shoot.

In the accompanying Calvin Klein campaign video, we see more of the story and, well, more of White: a slow-motion jog up the building’s staircase, a striptease down into briefs as if his life depended on it and, inexplicably, an effortless pull up.

All the while, New York’s skyline is never out of sight. The images “showcase (White’s) connection to the city,” read a press release from the brand. Though it’s not the view many are concentrating on.

The-CNN-Wire
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