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Billed as a conversation with Jeremy Allen White, and promising “a special guest”, there was very little surprise when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the intimate platform at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the rock star walked on separately, but to the same clip of entrance music: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the creation of this record 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 conversation, guided by Edith Bowman, revolved around the detailed approach of transforming into the star, and the inescapable oddity of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – throughout, a image of reptilian poise – recalled first sighting White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was wearing all white, so he was readily visible,” he remembered. “I just beckoned him to the stage and we exchanged hellos.” White was already well steeped in Springsteen’s music, had watched hours of concert footage, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an occasion for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a live performer, and to explore some of the specifics of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled preparing himself for an interrogation 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 hardly any queries.”

It was an challenging character to accept, White said. He mentioned often to the tremendous amount of Springsteen information out there, the amount of study he had to absorb, and discussed “the stress I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘worry that set, 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 engaged in, it was through the music itself that he really connected to the part. “A lot of my attention was going into the audio dimension of the film,” he said. “[Scott] wanted me to sing and play the guitar, and I said, ‘I am not skilled in 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 vocal chamber, 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 quite simple,” he said. “And when you’re absorbing Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. All the elements are 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 nicest guitar you can practice with,” White says. He began guitar lessons, via Zoom, with touring guitarist JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so excited to learn guitar with you,” White remembered stating on their first meeting. “We are pressed for 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 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 embrace more chances, in your work and in your life in general.” It aided that Cooper was “a true blue-collar film-maker” making “the kind of film I would be intrigued by,” he said. “Not your conventional musical biopic, but more of a personality-focused story with music.”

As the project moved forward, it possibly became stranger. Springsteen appeared on location often, saying sorry to White each time he made an appearance. “It’s gotta be really strange with the guy’s silly presence standing there,” he said. But he enjoyed what he saw: “I’ve stated this earlier, but I kept thinking ‘Damn, when did I get that good-looking?’” In the seat beside him, White shakes his head and shakes his head.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s choice; he was aware that the actor was ready to portray the most reflective time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera followed his internal life,” 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 playing him, he was struck by the actor’s technique. “His performance was entirely from the core personality, not just choosing characteristics and adopting them superficially,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but nevertheless it deeply corresponds to my story and myself.” He viewed it as something like his own approach to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives differ so greatly from his own. “You have to discover the part of them that is part of you.”

More disconcerting was the way the film forced him to return to difficult periods in his own life. The recreation 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 quite wonderful.”

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

Springsteen shared watching an early viewing in the company of his sister, who held his hand throughout. Just a year younger than her brother, “she retained every memory”. At the end, she looked at him and said: “Isn’t it amazing that we have that?”

There was an reflection, possibly, of the feeling Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish 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 joyful and painful parts of life … But with luck there’s an element of elevation that my audience takes with them. And ideally it lingers in their minds for as long as they need it.”