The Bear breakout star and Calvin Klein heartthrob Jeremy Allen White has been cast to play a bisexual man — the main character — in a new Netflix series based on Enigma Variations, a novel from Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman. The news was first reported exclusively by Variety.
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Aciman released Enigma Variations around the same time that Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name film came out — 10 years after the original novel was published. Following the critical acclaim for the Academy Award-nominated movie, Timothée Chalamet became a household name around the world and one of Hollywood's A-list actors.
The official synopsis of Enigma Variations describes that the novel centers on Paul, a man "whose loves remain as consuming and as covetous throughout his adulthood as they were in his adolescence. Whether the setting is southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents' cabinetmaker, or a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he'll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men.
"Whether he's on a tennis court in Central Park, or on a New York sidewalk in early spring, his attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire — not for just one person's body but, inevitably, for someone else's as well," the synopsis concludes.
Despite having already built a significant fan base from playing Lip Gallagher on Showtime's Shameless, White's career skyrocketed after playing Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto on FX's The Bear. Since then, White has starred in projects like Fremont, Fingernails, and The Iron Claw.
This Netflix series adaptation of Enigma Variations has Amanda Kate Shuman (The Blacklist) attached as showrunner and executive producer, according to Variety's report. Other names working on the project include Oliver Hermanus (Moffie, Living) as director. It's also noteworthy that both Aciman (book author) and White (lead actor) are reportedly attached to the show as executive producers.
As fans wait for official details about this new Netflix series, it's safe to say that "yes, chef!" is the overall response to the project.
FX's The Bear is streaming on Hulu.