US actor Jeremy Allen White has described the hand-painted contact lenses with “little weights” he wore for his portrayal of Bruce Springsteen in a new biographical film.
In Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, which follows the musician as he crafts his seminal country-folk album Nebraska, White, who has blue eyes, wore brown-coloured contact lenses for close-up shots of Bruce’s eyes.
“They had someone hand-paint the contacts so that all the little lines and details of the eyes were with me, and then they had to put little weights in the contacts to keep them still, because normally, with clear contacts, they’re always moving around,” White, 34, told the Table Manners podcast.
“It was a strange thing. There was this man who was in charge of giving me eye drops every 20 minutes, and he was a lovely man, just doing his job, but I remember having this Pavlovian response to him.
“Just because I would be in the middle of something, and he had to kind of come over with the eye drops!”
He continued: “I remember trying them on … My oldest daughter, Ezer, has my blue eyes and my youngest daughter has brown eyes, her mother’s eyes. But Ezer was heartbroken.
“They came over the house so I could try them (the contacts) on, and she thought that we had lost this thing that we share, you know, our eyes.”
Springsteen, whose album Nebraska pre-dated 1984’s Born In The USA and came after his 1975 breakthrough record Born To Run, watched some of White’s performance on set.
White said: “He’s been lovely and very supportive throughout the process. I think especially in the beginning, I was being asked questions about Bruce’s childhood and things like that.
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“And, you know, I have my understanding and what I’ve learned and speaking to him and reading what I’ve read, but at the end of the day, the man is here and it’s not really my place to speak about.
“I had a job to try to interpret as much as I could, but I don’t get the final say in any of these things. You know, Bruce is here.”
White has led all four seasons of hit drama The Bear, winning two Emmys and three Golden Globes for his role as chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto.
He is also known for playing Phillip “Lip” Gallagher in the US version of Shameless, and wrestler Kerry Von Erich in sports drama The Iron Claw.
