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Presented as a conversation with Jeremy Allen White, and promising “a special guest”, there was scarcely any astonishment when Bruce Springsteen showed up on the small stage at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the rock star walked on separately, but to the identical excerpt 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 pivotal point in the singer’s personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s conversation, moderated by Edith Bowman, focused on the intricate process of transforming into the star, and the inescapable oddity of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – the whole time, a portrait of reptilian poise – mentioned first spotting White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was clad in white, so he was simple to notice,” he remembered. “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 videos, and read a glut interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an opportunity for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a concert act, and to talk over some of the details of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen reflected bracing 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 well-read, he really asked hardly any queries.”

It was an intimidating role to take on, White said. He mentioned often to the immense volume of Springsteen information out there, the amount of learning he had to take on, and discussed “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘worry that solidified, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of effort 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 attention was going into the musical side 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 firm. White accordingly recorded his own renditions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the booth, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … relating strongly to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re reading a great script, your job is very easy,” he said. “And when you’re absorbing Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. All the elements are right there.”

Springsteen also presented 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 started guitar lessons, via Zoom, with touring guitarist JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so eager to learn guitar with you,” White remembered stating on their first meeting. “We are pressed for 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 thought 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 accept greater hazards, 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 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 stranger. Springsteen appeared on location often, saying sorry to White each time he arrived. “It’s must be really strange with the guy’s stupid ass standing there,” he said. But he appreciated what he saw: “I’ve stated this earlier, but I kept thinking ‘Damn, when did I get that handsome?’” In the seat beside him, White gestures in disagreement and shakes his head.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s choice; he was aware that the actor was equipped to represent the most reflective 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 cliche, but he’s a music icon.”

When he first saw White acting as him, he was affected by the actor’s method. “His performance was totally from the inside out, not just picking elements and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but nevertheless it strongly connects to my story and myself.” He saw it as something similar to his own approach 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 unsettling was the way the film pushed 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 recounted how often he returned to the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and extremely moving.”

Similarly, it was “a very emotional thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – capturing his unpredictable early years, when he experienced unidentified mental health issues and consumed alcohol excessively, and the sensitivity and tenderness of his later years.

Springsteen told of watching an early screening in the company of his sister, who held 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 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 told the small crowd before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very believable world. It has all the beautiful and awful parts of life … But ideally there’s an element of elevation that my audience brings home. And hopefully it lingers in their minds for as long as they need it.”