‘Bruce is so important’: Jeremy Allen White on playing Springsteen in new film
The Bear actor talks about embodying Bruce Springsteen, where he disagreed with the singer, his favourite music and bringing the raw emotion
Jeremy Allen White asked all the questions any normal human being would ask when offered the chance to play Bruce Springsteen in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.
To be released next month, the movie examines a slice of the rock legend’s career when he was battling depression and creating 1982’s incomparable exploration of alienation, Nebraska, a record he did not know he was making when he recorded the songs on a primitive four-track tape machine in a rented New Jersey home. It turned out to be his favourite of all his albums.
“The relationship a musician has with fans is so intimate,” White, 34, says after the movie had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in the US state of Colorado. “You listen to him in the car, you go to see him live. He’s there in your ear, and it’s just the two of you. You feel like you’re being spoken to. Bruce is so important to so many people. It was daunting. I didn’t want to disappoint.”
White is way past that anxiety phase now – if only because he had the approval of the person who matters the most: Springsteen himself. Here, he talks about the challenges of getting into his latest role.