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Presented as a discussion with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was very little surprise when Bruce Springsteen showed up on the intimate platform at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the music icon entered separately, but to the matching segment of entrance music: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the creation of this album that provides the focus for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which sees White as Springsteen at a pivotal point in the singer’s personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s talk, guided by Edith Bowman, revolved around the complex method of becoming Bruce, and the inescapable oddity of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – the whole time, a portrait of reptilian poise – recalled first spotting White during a audio test at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was clad in white, so he was easy to spot,” he remembered. “I just casually gestured him to the stage and we greeted each other.” White was already well steeped in Springsteen’s music, had viewed extensive footage of concert videos, and consumed numerous interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance for a deeper insight of Springsteen as a live performer, and to discuss some of the specifics of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen remembered bracing himself for an interrogation 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 very few questions.”

It was an intimidating role to take on, White said. He referred repeatedly to the immense volume of Springsteen information out there, the amount of study he had to take on, and spoke of “the stress I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘anxiety that solidified, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of energy 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 undertook, it was through the tunes that he really connected to the part. “A lot of my energy was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] expected me to vocalize and handle the guitar, and I said, ‘I am not skilled in those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was firm. White accordingly recorded his own interpretations of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the booth, singing Nebraska, and gaining assurance … 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 examining Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. It’s all 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 best guitar you can practice with,” White says. He started guitar lessons, via Zoom, with touring guitarist JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so excited to learn guitar with you,” White noted expressing on their first meeting. “We don’t have 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 thoughts 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 benefited that Cooper was “a real blue-collar film-maker” making “the kind of film I would be interested in,” he said. “Not your typical musical biopic, but more of a individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project progressed, it perhaps became more unusual. 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 silly presence standing there,” he said. But he liked 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 wags his finger and signals dissent.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s choice; he was aware that the actor was equipped to represent the most thoughtful 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 common saying, but he’s a rock star.”

When he first saw White acting as him, he was struck by the actor’s method. “His performance was completely from the core personality, not just selecting traits and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but in some way 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 disconcerting was the way the film compelled him to revisit challenging times in his own life. The recreation of his grandparents’ home in Freehold, New Jersey – a house he once described as “the finest and most tragic sanctuary I’ve ever known” was strange; Springsteen described how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and extremely moving.”

Similarly, it was “a very powerful thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – depicting his volatile early years, when he endured undiagnosed mental health issues and had a drinking problem, and the vulnerability and kindness of his later years.

Springsteen recounted watching an early screening in the attendance 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 echo, maybe, of the emotion Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You build an perfect realm for three hours,” he informed the intimate audience before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very credible world. It has all the beautiful and awful parts of life … But ideally there’s an element of uplift that my audience takes with them. And ideally it stays with them for as long as they need it.”