‘When Did I Get That Good-Looking?’: Bruce Springsteen on Seeing Jeremy Allen White Play Him On Screen

Marketed as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and promising “a special guest”, there was hardly any shock when Bruce Springsteen showed up on the compact set at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the music icon walked on separately, but to the identical excerpt of entrance music: the opening lines of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, after all, the creation of this LP that provides the focus for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which sees White as Springsteen at a decisive juncture in the singer’s personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s exchange, guided by Edith Bowman, revolved around the intricate process of transforming into the star, and the inevitable strangeness of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – consistently, a image of cool composure – mentioned first spotting White during a audio test at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was easy to spot,” he recalled. “I just casually gestured him to the stage and we said hi.” White was already thoroughly versed in Springsteen’s music, had studied countless recordings of concert material, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an occasion for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a onstage artist, and to discuss some of the particulars of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled preparing himself for an questioning that failed to materialize: “I thought this guy is really gonna be interested in me …” he said. In the end, however, “Jeremy was so well-read, he really asked very few questions.”

It was an intimidating role to take on, White said. He referred repeatedly to the immense volume of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of study he had to take on, and spoke of “the stress I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘nervousness that hardened, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of energy was going into the musical component of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the learning he pursued, it was through the songs that he really bonded with the part. “A lot of my attention was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] wanted me to vocalize and handle the guitar, and I said, ‘I am not skilled in those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White promptly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … relating strongly to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re going through a great script, your job is very easy,” he said. “And when you’re absorbing Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. It’s all right there.”

Springsteen also gave White a 1955 Gibson J-200 – the closest he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the best guitar you can start with,” White says. He started guitar lessons, via Zoom, with session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so thrilled to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying on their first meeting. “We are pressed for 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 initially simpler. “I thought I’m 76 years old, I am not overly concerned 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 helped that Cooper was “a true 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 progressed, it possibly became odder. Springsteen appeared on location often, expressing regret to White each time he arrived. “It’s has to be really weird 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 good-looking?’” In the seat beside him, White shakes his head and signals dissent.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s choice; he was aware that the actor was ready to portray the most thoughtful time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera captured his personal thoughts,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a common saying, but he’s a rock star.”

When he first saw White playing him, he was struck by the actor’s method. “His performance was completely from the inside out, not just picking elements and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but nevertheless it deeply corresponds to my story and myself.” He saw it as something similar to his own way to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives differ so greatly from his own. “You have to find the part of them that is part of you.”

More disconcerting was the way the film pushed him to reexamine hard phases in his own life. The reconstruction of his grandparents’ home in Freehold, New Jersey – a house he once described as “the greatest and saddest sanctuary I’ve ever known” was strange; Springsteen explained how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and very beautiful.”

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

Springsteen recounted watching an early screening in the attendance of his sister, who grasped his hand throughout. Just a year younger than her brother, “she remembered everything”. At the end, she looked at him and said: “Isn’t it marvelous that we have that?”

There was an parallel, perhaps, of the sensation Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an ideal world for three hours,” he addressed the select group before him last night. “It’s not a imaginary place. It’s a very plausible world. It has all the beautiful and awful parts of life … But with luck there’s an element of elevation that my audience carries away. And with luck it lingers in their minds for as long as they need it.”