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Billed as a dialogue with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was scarcely any astonishment when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the compact set at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The performer and the rock star came out separately, but to the identical excerpt of introductory track: the opening lines of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, ultimately, the making of this LP 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 life and career. Much of the evening’s exchange, steered by Edith Bowman, revolved around the intricate process of embodying Springsteen, and the inescapable oddity of fiction intersecting with reality.

Springsteen – the whole time, a picture of serene calm – recalled first catching a glimpse of White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was clad in white, so he was simple to notice,” he recalled. “I just beckoned him to the stage and we exchanged hellos.” 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 occasion for a enhanced comprehension of Springsteen as a concert act, and to talk over some of the particulars of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen reflected preparing himself for an interrogation that failed to materialize: “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 daunting part to undertake, White said. He referred repeatedly to the tremendous amount of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of learning he had to take on, and mentioned “the strain 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 music aspect of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the study he pursued, it was through the tunes that he really bonded with the part. “A lot of my energy was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] asked me to sing and play the guitar, and I said, ‘I can’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was firm. White duly recorded his own versions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … connecting deeply to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re going through a great script, your job is straightforward,” he said. “And when you’re examining Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. Everything’s 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 finest guitar you can learn on,” White says. He began guitar lessons, via Zoom, with session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so thrilled to learn guitar with you,” White remembered stating 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 sentiments about the film were originally more straightforward. “I figured 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 embrace more chances, 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 personality-focused story with music.”

As the project gathered pace, it maybe became odder. Springsteen came to the filming location often, saying sorry to White each time he made an appearance. “It’s must be really strange with the guy’s stupid ass standing there,” he said. But he liked what he saw: “I’ve stated this earlier, but I kept thinking ‘Damn, when did I get that attractive?’” In the seat beside him, White wags his finger and expresses denial.

Springsteen had few doubts about White’s casting; 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 tracked his internal life,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a common saying, but he’s a stage legend.”

When he first saw White portraying him, he was struck by the actor’s approach. “His performance was totally from the inside out, not just selecting traits and applying them externally,” he said. “It’s a non-imitative performance, but in some way it greatly relates to my story and myself.” He considered it something like his own way to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives are very different from his own. “You have to locate the part of them that is part of you.”

More disturbing was the way the film compelled him to return to hard phases in his own life. The rebuilding of his grandparents’ home in Freehold, New Jersey – a house he once described as “the greatest and saddest sanctuary I’ve ever known” was uncanny; Springsteen recounted how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was quite a miracle, and very beautiful.”

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

Springsteen recounted watching an early viewing in the company of his sister, who clutched 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 marvelous that we have that?”

There was an reflection, maybe, of the feeling Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an perfect realm for three hours,” he informed the small crowd before him last night. “It’s not a fictional universe. It’s a very believable world. It has all the wonderful and terrible parts of life … But ideally there’s an element of transcendence that my audience takes with them. And hopefully it stays with them for as long as they need it.”