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

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 actor and the rock star walked on 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 making of this record that serves as the centerpiece 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 talk, guided by Edith Bowman, centered around the detailed approach of embodying Springsteen, and the inevitable strangeness of art meeting life.

Springsteen – consistently, a image of reptilian poise – mentioned first catching a glimpse of White during a audio test at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was wearing all white, so he was simple to notice,” he recalled. “I just kind of waved him to the stage and we greeted each other.” White was already deeply immersed in Springsteen’s music, had studied countless recordings of concert material, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance for a deeper insight of Springsteen as a concert act, and to explore some of the particulars of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen reflected preparing 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 thoroughly briefed, he really asked scarcely any inquiries.”

It was an daunting part to undertake, White said. He spoke frequently to the immense volume of Springsteen information available, the amount of study he had to absorb, and discussed “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘worry that set, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of effort was going into the music aspect of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the study he engaged in, it was through the songs that he really bonded with 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 adamant. White accordingly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and building self-belief … connecting deeply to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re reading a great script, your job is straightforward,” he said. “And when you’re examining Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. It’s all right there.”

Springsteen also gave White a 1955 Gibson J-200 – the nearest he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the best guitar you can learn on,” White says. He commenced 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 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 feelings about the film were initially simpler. “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 helped that Cooper was “a genuine blue-collar film-maker” making “the kind of film I would be intrigued by,” he said. “Not your standard musical biopic, but more of a individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project moved forward, it maybe became odder. Springsteen came to the filming location often, expressing regret to White each time he showed up. “It’s has to be really weird with the guy’s foolish self 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 handsome?’” In the seat beside him, White shakes his head and shakes his head.

Springsteen had few doubts about White’s casting; he understood that the actor was ready to depict the most introspective 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 acting as him, he was struck by the actor’s technique. “His performance was completely from the core personality, not just picking elements and adopting them superficially,” he said. “It’s a non-copycat performance, but in some way it greatly relates to my story and myself.” He considered it something similar 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 unsettling was the way the film compelled him to return to 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 explained how often he saw the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was truly wondrous, and very beautiful.”

Similarly, it was “a very impactful thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – portraying his turbulent early years, when he endured unidentified mental health issues and consumed alcohol excessively, and the fragility and sweetness 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 remembered everything”. At the end, she faced him and said: “Isn’t it wonderful that we have that?”

There was an parallel, maybe, of the emotion Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You build an perfect realm for three hours,” he addressed the intimate audience before him last night. “It’s not a fantasy world. It’s a very credible world. It has all the wonderful and terrible parts of life … But with luck there’s an element of transcendence that my audience takes with them. And with luck it remains with them for as long as they need it.”