Playing Bruce Springsteen in a new biopic took a terrible toll on Jeremy Allen White

He told The Sunday Times: "I feel like I'm pain for hire. Like I'm getting paid to put myself in painful places.

"On The Bear it's not like I walk around punching walls and screaming in my closet. But I stay close to that energy and it's uncomfortable - and filming the Bruce movie was incredibly difficult.

"I was in isolation. I was far from my children. I didn't travel home much. It made me unwell and when I came out of it I thought, 'There has to be a better way'."

Jeremy - who has won rave reviews for his work as troubled chef Carmy Berzatto on TV series The Bear - shares daughters Ezer, seven, and Dolores, four, with ex-wife Addison Timlin.

Meanwhile, Jeremy previously admitted preparing to portray Bruce took months of "tough" work.

Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, he said: "There was a lot of prep. It was tough. I am such an admirer of Bruce, so it took a long time to accept I could do it.

"It was daunting and I had scary days, but I trained six times a week for six months so I could sound a bit like Bruce. The rasp came naturally after singing the songs over and over and over again."

However, Bruce revealed Jeremy was always his first choice to play him on screen as he is a big fan of The Bear.

He said: "I'd seen him in The Bear and saw how the camera read his internal psychology. His performance is very, very real and authentic. He was my first choice, and fortunately, he took the job."