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Marketed as a discussion with Jeremy Allen White, and promising “a special guest”, there was hardly any shock 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 same clip of introductory track: the starting verses of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, in the end, the making of this record that forms the core for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which casts White as Springsteen at a decisive juncture in the singer’s life and career. Much of the evening’s conversation, steered by Edith Bowman, revolved around the intricate process of becoming Bruce, and the inescapable oddity of art meeting life.

Springsteen – consistently, a image of serene calm – recalled first sighting White during a rehearsal at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was readily visible,” he remembered. “I just beckoned him to the stage and we said hi.” White was already thoroughly versed in Springsteen’s music, had watched hours of concert videos, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an chance for a deeper insight of Springsteen as a live performer, and to talk over some of the specifics 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 thoroughly briefed, he really asked very few questions.”

It was an challenging character to accept, White said. He spoke frequently to the immense volume of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of preparation he had to absorb, and discussed “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘anxiety that set, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of focus 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 songs that he really connected to the part. “A lot of my concentration was going into the musical side of the film,” he said. “[Scott] asked me to vocalize and handle the guitar, and I said, ‘I can’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White accordingly recorded his own interpretations of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the vocal chamber, 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 quite simple,” he said. “And when you’re absorbing Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. Everything’s right there.”

Springsteen also sent White a 1955 Gibson J-200 – the closest 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 session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so thrilled to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying 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 feelings about the film were initially more straightforward. “I reasoned 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 take more risks, 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 standard musical biopic, but more of a individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project moved forward, it perhaps became more unusual. Springsteen appeared on location often, apologising to White each time he made an appearance. “It’s must be really odd with the guy’s foolish self standing there,” he said. But he enjoyed what he saw: “I’ve mentioned this previously, but I kept thinking ‘Damn, when did I get that handsome?’” In the seat beside him, White shakes his head and expresses denial.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s selection; he understood that the actor was equipped to depict 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 music icon.”

When he first saw White playing him, he was struck by the actor’s approach. “His performance was completely from the core personality, not just choosing characteristics and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a non-imitative performance, but in some way it greatly relates to my story and myself.” He considered it something similar to his own approach to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives vary significantly from his own. “You have to locate the part of them that is part of you.”

More unsettling was the way the film compelled him to return to 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 uncanny; Springsteen recounted how often he visited 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 – capturing his volatile early years, when he endured unrecognized mental health issues and had a drinking problem, and the fragility and sweetness of his later years.

Springsteen recounted watching an early viewing in the presence of his sister, who clutched his hand throughout. Just a year younger than her brother, “she recalled all details”. At the end, she looked at him and said: “Isn’t it marvelous that we have that?”

There was an parallel, perhaps, 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 fantasy world. It’s a very believable world. It has all the joyful and painful parts of life … But ideally there’s an element of elevation that my audience brings home. And with luck it lingers in their minds for as long as they need it.”