“It’s a cliché,” says Bruce Springsteen, “but he is a rock star – and you can’t fake that.”
The Boss is talking about Jeremy Allen White, star of The Bear, who is now playing him in the upcoming film Deliver Me From Nowhere.
It comes after a flurry of biopics on musical greats in recent years, from Bohemian Rhapsody and Elvis to A Complete Unknown and Back To Black, but rather than an all-encompassing look at his epic career, this one focuses on a very specific period of its subject’s life; a raw portrayal of the young Springsteen, on the cusp of even greater success following the release of The River album, but struggling with inner demons and childhood trauma while writing the stark follow-up Nebraska, released in 1982.
Speaking at a Q&A held at Spotify’s London headquarters ahead of the film’s release, Springsteen, 76, said he had watched The Bear and “knew that was the kind of actor” needed – someone who could convey his inner turmoil, as well as play a convincing rock star.
“You either got that or you don’t have it, and he just had the swagger.”
Directed and co-written by Scott Cooper, the film is based on the book of the same name by Warren Zanes, and is the first time Springsteen’s life has been depicted on the big screen.
The star was on board straight away. “I figured, I’m 76 years old, I don’t really care what the f*** I do anymore. As you get older, certainly at my age, you take more risks in your work and in life in general.”
Jeremy Allen White stars as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere. Pic: Disney/ 20th Century Studios
He and White first met at one of his gigs at Wembley Stadium, where Springsteen prepared himself for lots of questions. “I figured this guy is going to be tremendously interested in me.” But White had done his homework, arriving “so prepared that he really asked me very few questions”.
Springsteen was on set regularly, “which I always apologise to [White] for because… it’s gotta be really weird playing the guy with the guy’s stupid ass sitting there.”
Learning five Bruce songs
And White also had to take on the music. When told he would need to sing and play guitar, his jokey response was: “I don’t do those things. Are you sure?” He had about six months and learned on a 1955 Gibson J-200, sent to him by Springsteen, as the closest model to his Nebraska guitar.
“I was getting together with [teacher JD Simo] on Zoom, four or five, six times a week to prepare. And the first time we hopped on, I said, ‘hey, I’m so excited to learn how to play guitar with you’. And he said, ‘we don’t have time to learn how to play the guitar, we have time to learn these five Bruce songs’. So I learned the guitar in a very strange way.”
Springsteen says it “took me a moment” to get used to seeing his story being dramatised, to White playing him. But he was happy.
“I always go, damn, when did I get that good looking?” he jokes. But he says White’s performance was impressive, that he was able to sing songs “that are hard for me to sing, some of them”.
Keeping the sweat going
Mastering the big hits, Born To Run, Born In The USA, was tough, says White. Thinking he would need to keep his heart rate high for his performance scenes, White says he took a weighted rope on set, to skip and “keep my sweat going”. Turns out, it wasn’t necessary. “When you perform Born To Run or Born In The USA, that sweat comes naturally… I did not need to use that rope.”
Part of the film goes back to Springsteen’s childhood, to the house he grew up in. “They did a very, very good job of putting that house back together,” he says. It is the home he visits “in my dreams to this day, at least a couple of times year… so being able to physically walk into what felt like that living space, my grandmother’s house, my grandfather’s house with my parents, we all lived there together. It was quite a miracle and quite wonderful”.
Springsteen with White and Stephen Graham at the Deliver Me From Nowhere London Film Festival premiere. Pic: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP
British actor and recent Emmy winner Stephen Graham plays Springsteen’s late father, and the drama delves into their difficult relationship.
Remembering the family struggles
Reliving those experiences was “powerful”, the star says. He watched an early screening with his younger sister, who held his hand throughout. “And at the end she says, isn’t it wonderful that we have this… it honours our family, it honours the memory of the struggles that we went through… To have it on film in the way that it was portrayed, meant a great deal to my sister and myself.”
Springsteen says he hopes people will connect with the film, with this part of his story, the same as the crowds in front of him do every time he walks on stage.
“The E Street Band will be good every night because that’s what we do,” he says. “But how great we’re going to be is up to you… Hopefully there’s an element of transcendence… and hopefully it stays with [the audience] for as long as they need.”
