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Marketed as a discussion with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “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 rock star came out separately, but to the identical excerpt of opening tune: the starting verses of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, after all, the making of this album that forms the core for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which features White as Springsteen at a pivotal point in the singer’s personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s conversation, guided by Edith Bowman, revolved around the complex method of becoming Bruce, and the inescapable oddity of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – the whole time, a picture of serene calm – recalled first spotting White during a audio test at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was wearing all white, so he was readily visible,” 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 watched hours of concert footage, and consumed numerous interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an occasion for a greater understanding of Springsteen as a onstage artist, and to explore some of the details of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled steeling himself for an inquiry 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 hardly any queries.”

It was an intimidating role to take on, White said. He referred repeatedly to the immense volume of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of learning he had to absorb, and spoke of “the stress I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘worry that solidified, 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 songs that he really related to the part. “A lot of my attention was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] expected me to perform and strum the guitar, and I said, ‘I don’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was firm. White promptly recorded his own interpretations of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, 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 straightforward,” he said. “And when you’re reading Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. Everything’s right there.”

Springsteen also sent 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 start with,” White says. He commenced guitar lessons, via Zoom, with touring guitarist JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so eager to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying on their first meeting. “We are pressed for time to learn the guitar,” Simo replied. “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 initially more straightforward. “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 accept greater hazards, in your work and in your life in general.” It helped that Cooper was “a genuine blue-collar film-maker” making “the kind of film I would be drawn to,” he said. “Not your typical musical biopic, but more of a character-driven drama with music.”

As the project moved forward, it perhaps became odder. Springsteen came to the filming location often, saying sorry to White each time he showed up. “It’s gotta be really weird with the guy’s stupid ass standing there,” he said. But he liked 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 wags his finger and shakes his head.

Springsteen had little uncertainty about White’s selection; he knew that the actor was prepared to represent the most introspective time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera tracked 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 playing him, he was struck by the actor’s method. “His performance was entirely from the core personality, not just selecting traits and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a non-copycat performance, but somehow it deeply corresponds 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 find the part of them that is part of you.”

More disturbing was the way the film compelled 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 greatest and saddest sanctuary I’ve ever known” was uncanny; 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 very beautiful.”

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

Springsteen told of watching an early screening in the attendance of his sister, who clutched 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, maybe, of the sensation Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an perfect realm for three hours,” he informed the small crowd before him last night. “It’s not a fantasy world. It’s a very credible 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 hopefully it stays with them for as long as they need it.”