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Presented as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was very little surprise when Bruce Springsteen showed up on the intimate platform at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the music icon walked on separately, but to the same clip of opening tune: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, after all, the creation of this record that serves as the centerpiece for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which casts White as Springsteen at a critical moment in the singer’s life and career. Much of the evening’s conversation, guided by Edith Bowman, focused on the intricate process of becoming Bruce, and the inescapable oddity of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – throughout, a image of reptilian poise – mentioned first catching a glimpse of White during a audio test at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was readily visible,” he noted. “I just kind of waved him to the stage and we exchanged hellos.” White was already deeply immersed in Springsteen’s music, had studied countless recordings of concert footage, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an opportunity for a greater understanding of Springsteen as a live performer, and to discuss some of the specifics of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen reflected preparing 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 well-read, he really asked scarcely any inquiries.”

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

“A lot of focus was going into the sonic element of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the research he undertook, it was through the music itself that he really related to the part. “A lot of my concentration was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] wanted me to perform and strum the guitar, and I said, ‘I don’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was firm. White duly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and building self-belief … connecting deeply 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 reading Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. All the elements are 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 nicest guitar you can practice with,” White says. He commenced guitar lessons, via Zoom, with professional musician JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so excited to learn guitar with you,” White noted expressing 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 feelings about the film were at first more straightforward. “I reasoned I’m 76 years old, I don’t really care what the fuck I do any more,” he said. “Yeah, go ahead. At my age you take more risks, 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 personality-focused story with music.”

As the project moved forward, it possibly became odder. Springsteen appeared on location often, expressing regret to White each time he made an appearance. “It’s must be really weird with the guy’s silly presence standing there,” he said. But he appreciated what he saw: “I’ve stated this earlier, but I kept thinking ‘Damn, when did I get that good-looking?’” In the seat beside him, White wags his finger and signals dissent.

Springsteen had little uncertainty about White’s casting; he knew that the actor was prepared to depict the most thoughtful time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera captured his inner world,” 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 acting as him, he was impressed by the actor’s method. “His performance was completely from the core personality, not just choosing characteristics and applying them externally,” he said. “It’s a non-copycat performance, but nevertheless it greatly relates to my story and myself.” He viewed it as something similar to his own method to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives vary significantly from his own. “You have to discover the part of them that is part of you.”

More unsettling was the way the film pushed him to revisit difficult periods in his own life. The rebuilding of his grandparents’ home in Freehold, New Jersey – a house he once described as “the finest and most tragic sanctuary I’ve ever known” was strange; Springsteen explained how often he returned to the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and very beautiful.”

Similarly, it was “a very powerful thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – portraying his volatile early years, when he endured unrecognized mental health issues and consumed alcohol excessively, and the vulnerability and kindness of his later years.

Springsteen told of watching an early viewing in the company 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 marvelous that we have that?”

There was an reflection, perhaps, of the sensation Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You build an perfect realm for three hours,” he informed the select group before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very believable 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 with luck it remains with them for as long as they need it.”