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Presented as a conversation with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was hardly any shock when Bruce Springsteen arrived on the compact set at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the rock star walked on separately, but to the matching segment of introductory track: the initial lyrics of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, after all, the production 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 personal and professional journey. Much of the evening’s talk, steered by Edith Bowman, focused on the complex method of embodying Springsteen, and the unavoidable peculiarity of art meeting life.

Springsteen – consistently, a portrait of cool composure – mentioned first spotting White during a sound check at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was readily visible,” he remembered. “I just casually gestured him to the stage and we exchanged hellos.” White was already well steeped in Springsteen’s music, had viewed extensive footage of concert material, and perused many interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an occasion for a greater understanding of Springsteen as a concert act, and to talk over some of the particulars of the Nebraska period with the singer himself. Springsteen recalled steeling himself for an questioning that did not come: “I thought this guy is really gonna be interested in me …” he said. In the end, however, “Jeremy was so prepared, he really asked very few questions.”

It was an challenging character to undertake, White said. He mentioned often to the tremendous amount of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of preparation he had to take on, and discussed “the strain I was putting on myself. Bruce called it ‘focus’. I called it ‘nervousness that solidified, maybe, into focus.’”

“A lot of effort was going into the sonic element of the film” … Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

For all the learning he engaged in, it was through the tunes that he really connected to the part. “A lot of my concentration was going into the musical component of the film,” he said. “[Scott] expected me to sing and play the guitar, and I said, ‘I am not skilled in those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was adamant. White promptly recorded his own versions of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and building self-belief … relating strongly to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re reading a great script, your job is straightforward,” he said. “And when you’re examining Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. It’s all right there.”

Springsteen also gave White a 1955 Gibson J-200 – the closest he could find to the guitar used for Nebraska, and “just about the best guitar you can learn on,” White says. He started guitar lessons, via Zoom, with session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so thrilled to learn guitar with you,” White noted expressing on their first meeting. “We don’t have time to learn the guitar,” Simo replied. “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 at first 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 aided that Cooper was “a true blue-collar film-maker” making “the kind of film I would be intrigued by,” he said. “Not your conventional musical biopic, but more of a individual-centered narrative with music.”

As the project progressed, it maybe became odder. Springsteen appeared on location often, apologising to White each time he made an appearance. “It’s has to be really strange with the guy’s silly presence standing there,” he said. But he enjoyed 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 shakes his head and shakes his head.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s choice; he understood that the actor was equipped to represent the most thoughtful time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera tracked his personal thoughts,” he said. “And if you see him in a film, it’s a cliche, but he’s a rock star.”

When he first saw White acting as him, he was affected by the actor’s approach. “His performance was entirely from the inside out, not just selecting traits and wearing them like clothes,” he said. “It’s a original performance, but in some way it strongly connects to my story and myself.” He viewed it as something akin to his own method 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 disconcerting was the way the film compelled him to return to challenging times in his own life. The reconstruction 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 explained how often he returned to the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was truly wondrous, and very beautiful.”

Similarly, it was “a very emotional thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – capturing his unpredictable early years, when he suffered unrecognized mental health issues and drank heavily, and the fragility and sweetness of his later years.

Springsteen told of watching an early showing in the company 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 echo, maybe, of the sensation Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an ideal world for three hours,” he informed the select group before him last night. “It’s not a imaginary place. It’s a very plausible world. It has all the joyful and painful parts of life … But with luck there’s an element of elevation that my audience takes with them. And hopefully it lingers in their minds for as long as they need it.”