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Billed as a conversation with Jeremy Allen White, and hinting at “a special guest”, there was scarcely any astonishment when Bruce Springsteen appeared on the compact set at Spotify’s London offices on Tuesday evening. The actor and the rock star entered separately, but to the same clip of opening tune: the starting verses of Atlantic City, from Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska.

It is, in the end, the creation of this LP that serves as the centerpiece for Scott Cooper’s new film Deliver Me From Nowhere, which casts 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, revolved around the intricate process of transforming into the star, and the inevitable strangeness of performance blending with truth.

Springsteen – throughout, a image of reptilian poise – spoke of first catching a glimpse of White during a sound check at Wembley Stadium, in the summer of 2024. “Jeremy was dressed in white attire, so he was simple to notice,” he recalled. “I just beckoned him to the stage and we said hi.” White was already thoroughly versed in Springsteen’s music, had viewed extensive footage of concert videos, and consumed numerous interviews and biographies. The Wembley show was an occasion for a greater understanding of Springsteen as a live performer, and to explore some of the specifics 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 well-read, he really asked hardly any queries.”

It was an daunting part to accept, White said. He spoke frequently to the tremendous amount of Springsteen information accessible, the amount of learning he had to absorb, and spoke of “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 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 songs that he really connected 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 can’t do those things … are you sure?’” Cooper was insistent. White promptly recorded his own interpretations of Springsteen’s songs. “I remember being in Nashville, at RCA [studio], in the recording space, singing Nebraska, and finding some confidence … relating strongly to Bruce, in a way,” he said. “When you’re going through a great script, your job is very easy,” he said. “And when you’re reading Bruce’s lyrics, it’s the same. Everything’s 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 session player JD Simo. “Hey, I’m so eager to learn guitar with you,” White recalled saying 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 thoughts about the film were at first less complicated. “I thought I’m 76 years old, I have few worries 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 benefited that Cooper was “a true 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 progressed, it possibly became odder. Springsteen visited the set often, apologising to White each time he showed up. “It’s gotta be really odd 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 handsome?’” In the seat beside him, White shakes his head and expresses denial.

Springsteen had minimal hesitation about White’s selection; he was aware that the actor was ready to portray the most thoughtful time in his recording career. “I’d watched The Bear, and how the camera captured 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 struck by the actor’s approach. “His performance was totally from the inner self outward, not just picking elements 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 akin to his own approach to songwriting – to writing about people whose lives vary significantly from his own. “You have to discover the part of them that is part of you.”

More disturbing 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 best and most sorrowful sanctuary I’ve ever known” was strange; Springsteen described how often he visited the home in his dreams. “So, to be in that house again … it was remarkable, and quite wonderful.”

Similarly, it was “a very emotional thing” to see Stephen Graham as his father – portraying his turbulent early years, when he endured unidentified mental health issues and consumed alcohol excessively, and the vulnerability and sweetness of his later years.

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

There was an echo, maybe, of the feeling Springsteen hopes to give his own audiences through his live shows. “You establish an utopian space for three hours,” he told the intimate audience before him last night. “It’s not a fantasy world. It’s a very credible world. It has all the wonderful and terrible parts of life … But ideally there’s an element of elevation that my audience takes with them. And ideally it stays with them for as long as they need it.”