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Marketed as a discussion with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was scarcely any astonishment when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the compact set at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the music icon walked on separately, but to the matching segment of introductory track: the opening lines of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the production of this LP that provides the focus for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which casts White as Springsteen at a critical moment in the singer’s personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s exchange, steered by Edith Bowman, revolved around the detailed approach of transforming into the star, and the inescapable oddity of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – consistently, a picture of cool composure – spoke of first spotting White during a sound check at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was wearing all white, so he was simple to notice,” he remembered. “I just kind of waved him to the stage and we greeted each other.” White was already thoroughly versed in Springsteen’s music, had studied countless recordings of concert videos, and consumed numerous interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance 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 remembered 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 thoroughly briefed, he really asked hardly any queries.”

It was an daunting part to accept, White said. He referred repeatedly to the immense volume of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of learning he had to acquire, and discussed “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘nervousness that solidified, maybe, into focus.’”

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

For all the study he engaged in, it was through the music itself that he really bonded with the part. “A lot of my concentration was going into the musical component of the film,” he said. “[Scott] wanted me to perform and strum the guitar, and I said, ‘I am not skilled in 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 finding some confidence … feeling close to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re reading a great script, your job is very easy,” 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 most similar he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the finest guitar you can learn on,” White says. He commenced guitar lessons, via Zoom, with professional musician JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so thrilled to learn guitar with you,” White noted expressing on their first meeting. “We lack the 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 less complicated. “I figured 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 embrace more chances, 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 intrigued by,” he said. “Not your conventional musical biopic, but more of a personality-focused story with music.”

As the project progressed, it maybe became more unusual. Springsteen appeared on location often, expressing regret to White each time he showed up. “It’s has to be really strange with the guy’s foolish self 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 attractive?’” In the seat beside him, White shakes his head and shakes his head.

Springsteen had few doubts about White’s casting; he understood that the actor was ready to portray the most introspective time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera followed 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 portraying him, he was affected by the actor’s approach. “His performance was totally from the inner self outward, not just selecting traits and adopting them superficially,” he said. “It’s a non-copycat performance, but nevertheless it greatly relates to my story and myself.” He viewed it as something like his own approach to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives vary significantly from his own. “You have to locate the part of them that is part of you.”

More unsettling was the way the film pushed him to revisit challenging times in his own life. The recreation of his grandparents’ home in Freehold, New Jersey – a house he once described as “the greatest and saddest sanctuary I’ve ever known” was uncanny; Springsteen explained how often he saw the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and quite wonderful.”

Similarly, it was “a very emotional 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 fragility and tenderness of his later years.

Springsteen told of watching an early showing in the presence of his sister, who held his hand throughout. Just a year younger than her brother, “she retained every memory”. At the end, she turned to him and said: “Isn’t it amazing that we have that?”

There was an parallel, possibly, of the sensation Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You build an utopian space for three hours,” he informed the small crowd before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very credible world. It has all the joyful and painful parts of life … But with luck there’s an element of uplift that my audience takes with them. And with luck it stays with them for as long as they need it.”