Bruce Springsteen is revealing what it was like to watch Jeremy Allen White portray him in his forthcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere.
The film, hailing from writer-director Scott Cooper, stars White as the legendary artist, centering in on the time period when he made his 1982 record Nebraska. The album is deeply personal, and Springsteen told Rolling Stone that there was “some unusualness” to watching the project be filmed because it touches on “some of the most painful days of my life.”
“I mean, there’s some unusualness to it because the movie involves, in some ways, some of the most painful days of my life,” he said, adding that he would take time away from set “if there was a scene coming up that was sometimes really deeply personal.”
“Well, some of the scenes I wasn’t at,” he said. “I wanted the actors to feel completely free, and I didn’t want to get in the way, and so I would just stay at home. If Scott Cooper, the director, wanted or needed me there for something, I would try to make it. But I was on tour in Canada for the whole first month or so of the filming, and so I was out really out on the road quite a bit and working at that time.”
The first footage from Deliver Me From Nowhere debuted earlier this year at CinemaCon, and the official trailer dropped on Wednesday, giving audiences a first look at The Bear star’s depiction of Springsteen, including his performance of his beloved 1975 single “Born to Run.”
It’s no secret that Springsteen and his longtime manager and record producer Jon Landau (played by Jeremy Strong) were involved in Deliver Me From Nowhere. The “Dancing in the Dark” singer would often visit the film’s set, and when asked what it was like watching White play him, the 20-time Grammy Award winner joked, “I’m sure it’s much worse for the actor than for me.”
“Jeremy Allen White was very, very tolerant of me the days that I would appear on the set. I said to him, ‘Look, anytime I’m in the way, just give me the look and I’m on my way home,’” Springsteen added. “So the days that I got out there, he was wonderfully tolerant with me being there. And it was just fun. It was enjoyable.”
The film is adapted from Warren Zanes’ 2023 book of the same name and will hit theaters late this year on Oct. 24. Alongside White and Landau, the cast includes Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffmann, Johnny Cannizzaro, Harrison Gilbertson, Marc Maron, David Krumholtz and Chris Jaymes.
