🔗 Share this article

Marketed as a discussion with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was scarcely any astonishment when Bruce Springsteen appeared on the intimate platform at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the rock star walked on separately, but to the same clip of introductory track: the opening lines of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the production of this record that forms the core for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which sees White as Springsteen at a critical moment in the singer’s life and career. Much of the evening’s talk, moderated by Edith Bowman, centered around the intricate process of transforming into the star, and the inescapable oddity of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – throughout, a portrait of reptilian poise – spoke of first catching a glimpse of White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was wearing all white, so he was simple to notice,” he recalled. “I just kind of waved him to the stage and we greeted each other.” White was already well steeped in Springsteen’s music, had viewed extensive footage of concert material, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a concert act, and to explore some of the details of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled bracing himself for an questioning that never arrived: “I thought this guy is really gonna be interested in me …” he said. In the end, however, “Jeremy was so thoroughly briefed, he really asked very few questions.”

It was an daunting part to take on, White said. He mentioned often to the sheer weight of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of learning he had to acquire, and mentioned “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘worry that solidified, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of effort was going into the music aspect of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the learning he undertook, it was through the songs that he really connected to the part. “A lot of my concentration was going into the audio dimension of the film,” he said. “[Scott] wanted me to vocalize and handle the guitar, and I said, ‘I don’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White accordingly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the booth, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … relating strongly to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re reading a great script, your job is straightforward,” he said. “And when you’re reading Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. It’s all right there.”

Springsteen also presented White a 1955 Gibson J-200 – the closest he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the finest guitar you can learn on,” White says. He began guitar lessons, via Zoom, with touring guitarist JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so eager to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying on their first meeting. “We don’t have time to learn the guitar,” Simo answered. “We have time to learn these five Bruce songs.”

Jeremy Allen White and Bruce Springsteen on the set of Deliver Me From Nowhere in 2024.

Springsteen’s own sentiments about the film were originally more straightforward. “I thought I’m 76 years old, I have few worries what the fuck I do any more,” he said. “Yeah, go ahead. At my age you accept greater hazards, in your work and in your life in general.” It benefited that Cooper was “a genuine blue-collar film-maker” making “the kind of film I would be drawn to,” he said. “Not your conventional musical biopic, but more of a character-driven drama with music.”

As the project gathered pace, it possibly became odder. Springsteen came to the filming location often, expressing regret to White each time he showed up. “It’s must be really strange with the guy’s stupid ass standing there,” he said. But he appreciated what he saw: “I’ve mentioned this previously, but I kept thinking ‘Damn, when did I get that attractive?’” In the seat beside him, White wags his finger and expresses denial.

Springsteen had little uncertainty about White’s choice; he understood that the actor was prepared to portray the most thoughtful time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera followed his internal life,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a common saying, but he’s a music icon.”

When he first saw White acting as him, he was affected by the actor’s method. “His performance was entirely from the inner self outward, not just selecting traits and applying them externally,” he said. “It’s a non-imitative performance, but somehow it strongly connects to my story and myself.” He considered it something like his own approach to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives differ so greatly from his own. “You have to locate the part of them that is part of you.”

More disconcerting was the way the film pushed him to reexamine difficult periods in his own life. The reconstruction of his grandparents’ home in Freehold, New Jersey – a house he once described as “the best and most sorrowful sanctuary I’ve ever known” was eerie; Springsteen explained how often he saw the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was truly wondrous, and very beautiful.”

Similarly, it was “a very emotional thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – depicting his turbulent early years, when he endured undiagnosed mental health issues and drank heavily, and the sensitivity and kindness of his later years.

Springsteen shared watching an early screening in the attendance of his sister, who held his hand throughout. Just a year younger than her brother, “she recalled all details”. At the end, she turned to him and said: “Isn’t it wonderful that we have that?”

There was an parallel, perhaps, of the emotion Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an perfect realm for three hours,” he addressed the intimate audience before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very plausible world. It has all the joyful and painful parts of life … But ideally there’s an element of elevation that my audience takes with them. And hopefully it stays with them for as long as they need it.”