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Marketed as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and promising “a special guest”, there was hardly any shock when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the small stage 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 starting verses of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the making of this LP that provides the focus for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which casts White as Springsteen at a critical moment in the singer’s personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s conversation, guided by Edith Bowman, focused on the intricate process of becoming Bruce, and the inescapable oddity of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – consistently, a picture of reptilian poise – mentioned first spotting White during a sound check at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was readily visible,” he noted. “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 perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance for a greater understanding of Springsteen as a onstage artist, and to talk over some of the particulars of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled preparing 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 prepared, he really asked very few questions.”

It was an daunting part to accept, White said. He mentioned often to the sheer weight of Springsteen information out there, the amount of study he had to acquire, and mentioned “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘worry that hardened, 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 study he undertook, it was through the music itself that he really related 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 don’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White duly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … feeling close 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 most similar 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 session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so excited to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying on their first meeting. “We lack the 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 less complicated. “I reasoned I’m 76 years old, I don’t really care 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 real 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 individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project gathered pace, it perhaps became odder. Springsteen visited the set often, expressing regret to White each time he showed up. “It’s gotta be really strange with the guy’s stupid ass standing there,” he said. But he enjoyed 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 choice; he understood that the actor was ready to portray the most reflective time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera captured his inner world,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a cliche, but he’s a rock star.”

When he first saw White portraying him, he was struck by the actor’s approach. “His performance was entirely from the inside out, not just choosing characteristics and applying them externally,” he said. “It’s a non-imitative performance, but somehow it strongly connects to my story and myself.” He saw it as something akin to his own approach to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives differ so greatly 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 reexamine challenging times in his own life. The rebuilding 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 uncanny; Springsteen explained how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was quite a miracle, and extremely moving.”

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

Springsteen recounted watching an early showing 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 faced him and said: “Isn’t it wonderful that we have that?”

There was an reflection, maybe, of the emotion Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You create an utopian space for three hours,” he addressed the small crowd before him last night. “It’s not a fantasy world. 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 remains with them for as long as they need it.”