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Billed as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and offering “a special guest”, there was very little surprise when Bruce Springsteen showed up on the compact set at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the rock star entered separately, but to the same clip of opening tune: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, in the end, the making of this album that serves as the centerpiece for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which casts White as Springsteen at a decisive juncture in the singer’s life and career. Much of the evening’s talk, moderated by Edith Bowman, focused on the intricate process of transforming into the star, and the inevitable strangeness of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – throughout, a picture of reptilian poise – 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 kind of waved him to the stage and we greeted each other.” White was already thoroughly versed in Springsteen’s music, had watched hours of concert videos, and consumed numerous interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a concert act, and to explore some of the specifics of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen reflected bracing 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 challenging character to accept, White said. He spoke frequently to the immense volume of Springsteen information out there, the amount of study he had to acquire, and discussed “the stress I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘nervousness that set, 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 research he pursued, it was through the music itself that he really connected to the part. “A lot of my concentration was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] asked me to vocalize and handle the guitar, and I said, ‘I can’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was firm. White accordingly recorded his own versions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the vocal chamber, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … relating strongly to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re studying 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 most similar he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the nicest guitar you can learn on,” White says. He began guitar lessons, via Zoom, with professional musician JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so eager to learn guitar with you,” White noted expressing on their first meeting. “We don’t have 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 originally 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 embrace more chances, in your work and in your life in general.” It aided 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 possibly became stranger. Springsteen came to the filming location often, saying sorry to White each time he arrived. “It’s has to be really odd with the guy’s stupid ass standing there,” he said. But he appreciated what he saw: “I’ve said this before, 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 choice; he understood 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 well-known phrase, but he’s a stage legend.”

When he first saw White playing him, he was impressed by the actor’s approach. “His performance was totally from the inside out, not just selecting traits and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but in some way it greatly relates to my story and myself.” He viewed it as something akin to his own way 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 disturbing was the way the film pushed him to return to difficult periods in his own life. The reconstruction 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 saw the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and extremely moving.”

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

Springsteen recounted watching an early showing in the company of his sister, who grasped 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 wonderful that we have that?”

There was an parallel, possibly, of the emotion Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You build an ideal world for three hours,” he informed the small crowd before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very believable world. It has all the beautiful and awful parts of life … But with luck there’s an element of uplift that my audience brings home. And hopefully it remains with them for as long as they need it.”