Playing Bruce Springsteen is a daunting prospect. Playing Bruce Springsteen while he’s sitting in front of you is a level up.
Apparently, you get used to having him around, on call to answer any questions you might have about his walk or about taping on a four-track recorder in his bedroom.
Just ask Jeremy Allen White. The breakout star of The Bear is sidling into awards season with his depiction of the Boss in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, a soulful account of a dark time in Springsteen’s life as the singer jostled with the huge success of his album The River, from 1980, unprocessed childhood trauma and the simultaneous creation of his albums Nebraska and Born in the USA, which followed in 1982 and 1984.
“I only really knew Bruce as a performer,” White says. “I’d heard him speak and always thought he seemed like a deep and reasonable man, mostly from his lyricism. But I didn’t know much about him personally. The first time we met, I saw him perform on stage – he was 75 – and he delivered with the same passion and almost violent energy I’d seen in all the old concert footage I was studying.
RM Block
“Then I spoke to him afterwards, and he was incredibly soft, gentle, generous and present. I wouldn’t say that side of him was a surprise, but I was really moved by how gently he moves through the world, especially considering how long he’s been known and idolised. It left a big impression on me.”
Musical biopics have become almost mandatory at the Academy Awards over the past quarter-century, with films such as Ray, Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody hoovering up Oscar nominations, including acting gongs for Jamie Foxx, Joaquin Phoenix and Rami Malek. Deliver Me from Nowhere looks set to step into the position occupied last year by A Complete Unknown, which starred an Oscar-nominated Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
The contemplative, period-specific Springsteen film was a sharp learning curve for its star, who had to learn how to play guitar. He focused on a limited number of songs from Nebraska. Recording sessions took place at the historic RCA Studios in Nashville, where White recorded remarkably convincing vocals and instrumentation.
“Learning guitar was the hardest part for me,” White says. “I had never played before. I remember meeting with Dave Cobb, our music supervisor, and he said, ‘This shouldn’t be too tough.’ Then I picked up the guitar and couldn’t even make an E chord. My fingers wouldn’t co-operate. Dave’s face kind of dropped. I think we both had a moment of panic. But I worked with JD Simo, an incredible guitarist. We spent a lot of time together, and he helped me get comfortable.”
This was no small challenge.
“Like anything, it took repetition and time – and some prayers,” White says. “Bruce’s writing is so strong that it’s easy to perform with honesty. You can internalise the lyrics and understand what’s going on emotionally. The challenge was more about capturing the sound of his voice, and singing in a way that sounded good to the ear. Recording in Nashville at RCA, I definitely found my footing. That’s when I first started to feel close to Bruce in a real way.”
Deliver Me from Nowhere follows Springsteen in 1981 as he retreats from the commercial success of The River to write Nebraska, a stark, entirely uncommercial folk album. Struggling with depression, Springsteen isolates himself in rural New Jersey, recording haunting songs on a basic cassette recorder.
Stephen Graham plays Springsteen’s troubled father; Jeremy Strong is Springsteen’s loyal manager, Jon Landau; and Odessa Young appears as a composite girlfriend character. Springsteen has said that he was especially touched by the performances of Graham and White.
“The few performance scenes in the film are based on real footage,” White says. “So there’s a clear blueprint, which also means they open you up to more criticism, because that’s the version everyone knows. But the internal stuff, the quiet moments alone, I had more freedom there.
“I was lucky to have Bruce’s book, his one-man show, interviews and time with him in person. I also spent time with people close to him during that period: Jimmy Iovine, Patti [Scialfa, Springsteen’s wife], Jon Landau. Because even when someone tells their story honestly, it can get a little confusing.
“The hardest question I asked myself was, ‘What do I have in common with Bruce Springsteen?’ It felt impossible at first, but as we talked I started to connect with the deep sadness he was feeling during that time. And I realised maybe I had something I could give to the story.”
White was born in Brooklyn, in 1991, to Eloise and Richard White – both also actors, mainly in theatre. A student at a performing-arts high school, he began acting professionally in his teens, with early indie-film roles that brought him to the red carpets of Cannes and Venice. In 2011 he was cast as Phillip “Lip” Gallagher in the US version of the British show Shameless, a character he would play for more than a decade. White was 18 when he joined the cast and 30 when the series concluded.
His role as the angsty chef Carmy Berzatto in the monstrously popular The Bear, on Disney+, brought him critical acclaim, a Golden Globe, an Emmy award and fan mail from Dustin Hoffman.
He has two daughters with Addison Timlin, his costar in the 2008 indie film Afterschool, whom he married in 2019. The couple separated in 2023 amid a flurry of headlines. They now share custody of their children. It’s impossible to overlook the intersection between the actor’s global celebrity and Springsteen’s similar struggles with fame during the 1970s.
“What interested me about this period in Bruce’s life, after the River tour, his most successful record at the time, was how public perception and expectation can be confusing if you don’t have a solid sense of self,” White says. “With this film, of course, I hope people go see it. And I imagine people’s perception of me might shift or grow. And maybe that gets further out of my hands.
“But when I was making the movie I was thinking a lot about self-confidence and identity. And that’s something I consider often in my own life. Bruce has said he felt the most present on stage or in the studio. But, outside of that, especially during this period in his life, he felt lost. I’ve had moments in my own life like that.”
White was only broadly familiar with the artist’s big hits before taking the role as Springsteen. After being cast he immersed himself in the discography; the two first met during a soundcheck at Wembley Stadium, in London, in 2024. (Springsteen has recalled being able to pick the actor out of the crowd thanks to his trademark white T-shirt.) If White wasn’t a diehard fan before that night, he is now.
“He shook my hand and talked to me very kindly about the period we were covering in the film,” says White. “Later, during the concert, I was standing to the side of the stage with his close friends and family. And I noticed he kept looking over – kind of searching through the group – and then he’d lock eyes with me.
“It felt like he was saying, ‘This is what it feels like. This is what I do. Do you think you can handle this?’ It was intense and inspiring. They played for four hours that night. It was their last show of the European tour. I was blown away.”
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is in cinemas now
