Jan 28
Jeremy Allen White Set to Play a Bi Tennis Pro in Netflix's 'Enigma Variations'
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
The star of "The Bear" is set to portray a bisexual tennis champ in a Netflix series based on "Call Me By Your Name" author André Aciman's novel "Enigma Variations."
Noting that Luca Guadagnino – the director of the film version of "Call Me By Your Name" – also made last year's steamy tennis flick "Challengers," AV Club quipped, "it'll be interesting, if a little odd, to see someone else take a stab at the type of material the 'Challengers' director has become so synonymous with."
Though the project is still in early days and changes may yet happen, Oliver Hermanus is currently slated to direct for the series, as well as serve as executive producer. The "Moffie" helmer took on similar duties for last year's series "Mary & George," a queer-themed historical drama starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine in the title roles. Hermanus is also directing this year's hotly anticipated "The History of Sound," which will pair Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor on the big screen.
"'Enigma Variations' charts the life of a man named Paul, whose loves remain as consuming and as covetous throughout his adulthood as they were in his adolescence," Variety reported in a summary of Aciman's novel. The entertainment news magazine went on to note that the novel is set in part in "southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents' cabinetmaker" as well as "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."
In the novel, Variety added, "Paul's attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire."
White's success on the hit series "The Bear" is only part of his busy resume; the gay audience favorite recently starred in the wrestling drama "The Iron Claw," and is set to lend his talents to a feature film version of "The Mandalorian," as well as portray Bruce Springsteen in the biopic "Deliver Me from Nowhere."
White had a starring role of another sort when he was featured in a Calvin Klein campaign last fall. He'll also don the executive producer hat for the upcoming Netflix series, Variety relayed.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
