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Billed as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was scarcely any astonishment when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the small stage at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The performer and the rock star came out separately, but to the same clip of introductory track: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, 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 pivotal point in the singer’s life and career. Much of the evening’s talk, guided by Edith Bowman, revolved around the intricate process of embodying Springsteen, and the inevitable strangeness of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – throughout, a image of reptilian poise – 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 readily visible,” 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 read a glut interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an opportunity for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a onstage artist, and to explore some of the particulars of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled preparing 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 thoroughly briefed, he really asked very few questions.”

It was an intimidating role to accept, White said. He spoke frequently to the tremendous amount of Springsteen information out there, the amount of preparation 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 study he undertook, 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] wanted me to vocalize and handle the guitar, and I said, ‘I am not skilled in those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White duly recorded his own interpretations of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the vocal chamber, singing Nebraska, and building self-belief … connecting deeply to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re studying a great script, your job is quite simple,” he said. “And when you’re examining Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. All the elements are right there.”

Springsteen also presented White a 1955 Gibson J-200 – the nearest he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the finest guitar you can start with,” White says. He started guitar lessons, via Zoom, with touring guitarist JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so eager 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 feelings about the film were at first more straightforward. “I figured 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 take more risks, in your work and in your life in general.” It benefited that Cooper was “a true 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 progressed, it possibly became more unusual. Springsteen visited the set often, expressing regret to White each time he arrived. “It’s must be really weird with the guy’s stupid ass 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 handsome?’” 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 introspective time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera tracked his inner world,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a well-known phrase, but he’s a music icon.”

When he first saw White acting as him, he was struck by the actor’s method. “His performance was entirely from the inner self outward, not just choosing characteristics and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but in some way it strongly connects to my story and myself.” He saw it as something akin to his own method 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 pushed him to reexamine 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 eerie; Springsteen explained how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was truly wondrous, and very beautiful.”

Similarly, it was “a very emotional thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – depicting his unpredictable early years, when he experienced undiagnosed mental health issues and had a drinking problem, and the sensitivity and sweetness of his later years.

Springsteen shared watching an early viewing in the attendance of his sister, who grasped his hand throughout. Just a year younger than her brother, “she recalled all details”. At the end, she looked at him and said: “Isn’t it marvelous that we have that?”

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