‘When Did I Get That Handsome?’: The Rock Legend on Watching Jeremy Allen White Play Him In Film

Billed as a discussion with Jeremy Allen White, and offering “a special guest”, there was very little surprise when Bruce Springsteen appeared on the intimate platform at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The performer and the music icon entered separately, but to the same clip of entrance music: the starting verses of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, in the end, the production of this LP that forms the core for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which sees White as Springsteen at a decisive juncture in the singer’s life and career. Much of the evening’s exchange, moderated by Edith Bowman, centered around the detailed approach of transforming into the star, and the inescapable oddity of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – throughout, a portrait of reptilian poise – spoke of first spotting White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was wearing all white, so he was simple to notice,” he noted. “I just kind of waved him to the stage and we said hi.” White was already deeply immersed in Springsteen’s music, had studied countless recordings of concert videos, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an occasion for a deeper insight of Springsteen as a live performer, and to discuss some of the specifics of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled steeling himself for an interrogation that did not come: “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 challenging character to accept, White said. He spoke frequently to the immense volume of Springsteen information out there, the amount of learning he had to absorb, and discussed “the pressure 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 sonic element of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the learning he engaged in, it was through the tunes that he really related to the part. “A lot of my energy was going into the audio dimension of the film,” he said. “[Scott] wanted me to sing and play the guitar, and I said, ‘I can’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White promptly recorded his own versions 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 quite simple,” he said. “And when you’re reading Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. Everything’s 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 best guitar you can practice with,” White says. He began guitar lessons, via Zoom, with professional musician JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so excited to learn guitar with you,” White remembered stating 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 thoughts about the film were originally less complicated. “I reasoned 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 embrace more chances, 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 intrigued by,” he said. “Not your typical musical biopic, but more of a individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project progressed, it possibly became odder. Springsteen came to the filming location often, apologising to White each time he made an appearance. “It’s must be really odd 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 understood that the actor was ready to represent the most introspective 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 well-known phrase, but he’s a rock star.”

When he first saw White acting as him, he was impressed by the actor’s approach. “His performance was completely from the inside out, not just picking elements and applying them externally,” he said. “It’s a non-imitative performance, but somehow it deeply corresponds to my story and myself.” He saw it as something similar to his own method to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives are very different from his own. “You have to discover the part of them that is part of you.”

More disconcerting was the way the film forced him to return to hard phases in his own life. The recreation 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 eerie; Springsteen explained how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was truly wondrous, and extremely moving.”

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

Springsteen recounted watching an early viewing in the attendance of his sister, who clutched 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 amazing that we have that?”

There was an echo, maybe, of the feeling Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an perfect realm for three hours,” he told the select group 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 hopefully there’s an element of elevation that my audience brings home. And ideally it remains with them for as long as they need it.”