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Presented as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and promising “a special guest”, there was very little surprise when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the small stage at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The performer and the rock star entered separately, but to the identical excerpt of opening tune: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the making of this album that forms the core 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 conversation, guided by Edith Bowman, focused on the complex method of embodying Springsteen, and the inevitable strangeness of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – the whole time, a picture of reptilian poise – mentioned first spotting White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was easy to spot,” he noted. “I just casually gestured him to the stage and we exchanged hellos.” White was already thoroughly versed in Springsteen’s music, had watched hours of concert videos, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an opportunity for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a live performer, and to explore some of the details of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled bracing himself for an inquiry that failed to materialize: “I thought this guy is really gonna be interested in me …” he said. In the end, however, “Jeremy was so prepared, he really asked hardly any queries.”

It was an intimidating role to undertake, White said. He mentioned often to the sheer weight of Springsteen information available, the amount of preparation he had to acquire, and discussed “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 musical component of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the research he engaged in, it was through the music itself that he really bonded with the part. “A lot of my energy was going into the musical component of the film,” he said. “[Scott] expected me to sing and play the guitar, and I said, ‘I don’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was adamant. White accordingly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the vocal chamber, singing Nebraska, and gaining assurance … feeling close 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 examining Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. Everything’s 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 session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so excited to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying on their first meeting. “We lack the time to learn the guitar,” Simo responded. “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 at first simpler. “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 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 drawn to,” he said. “Not your conventional musical biopic, but more of a individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project gathered pace, it perhaps became more unusual. Springsteen appeared on location often, expressing regret to White each time he arrived. “It’s must be really weird with the guy’s silly presence standing there,” he said. But he enjoyed 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 shakes his head and expresses denial.

Springsteen had few doubts about White’s selection; he was aware that the actor was ready to represent the most reflective time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera tracked his internal life,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a cliche, but he’s a rock star.”

When he first saw White portraying him, he was struck by the actor’s approach. “His performance was totally from the inner self outward, not just choosing characteristics and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a non-copycat performance, but nevertheless it deeply corresponds to my story and myself.” He considered it something akin to his own way 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 unsettling was the way the film forced him to revisit challenging times in his own life. The rebuilding 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 recounted how often he returned to the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was quite a miracle, and quite wonderful.”

Similarly, it was “a very powerful thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – portraying his unpredictable early years, when he suffered unidentified mental health issues and had a drinking problem, and the fragility and tenderness of his later years.

Springsteen recounted watching an early viewing in the presence 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 wonderful that we have that?”

There was an parallel, possibly, of the feeling 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 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 carries away. And with luck it lingers in their minds for as long as they need it.”