Jeremy Allen White explores Bruce Springsteen’s ‘frightening’ depression at heart of new biopic

Jeremy Allen White has opened up about portraying Bruce Springsteen’s mental health crisis onscreen during the making of his album Nebraska.

The writing and recording of his sixth album between 1981 and 1982 forms the basis of the rock star’s new biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere – the only part of his life the 76-year-old music icon was willing to give his blessing to receiving the Hollywood movie treatment.

In 2012, Springsteen revealed that he had been in therapy for 30 years after feeling suicidal while working on Nebraska, his most personal album, produced on a four-track recorder in his house without the accompaniment of the famous E Street Band.

Speaking at Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’s premiere during the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday night, White revealed that mental health was one of the first things he and the Born in the USA singer discussed.

‘We spoke very early on – here in London is the first time we met, and on our first meeting I asked him specifically about this period in the film where he’s driving across the country,’ he recalled in response to Metro’s question.

‘He had kind of been sinking for a while, but I think there’s a real break at the county fair – and I asked him what was going on there, and he described to me the feeling of being an observer in his own life, having no real presence in his own life, and how frightening that concept was.

‘He really wasn’t able to get out of that until he listened to his friend [and former manager] Jon Landau and went to seek professional help.’

When discussing the impact he hoped it may have, the Golden Globe winner for The Bear added: ‘I hope people see this movie; if they feel the way Bruce has felt, or if they’re feeling alone, that they feel confident and comfortable seeing someone they may admire in Bruce Springsteen being very brave in these moments – especially at that period in time and especially in that environment he grew up in and lived in.

‘If he was able to do it, you know, you’re able to do it too. I hope people can see that.’

Springsteen, who made a previously unannounced appearance on the red carpet to support the film, has a passionately devoted fanbase – described as ‘almost religious’ by producer Ben Robinson – and Deliver Me From Nowhere’s writer-director Scott Cooper has a very clear idea why.  

‘Because he speaks to all of us who don’t have a voice, he speaks to the best versions of ourself, to our pain, he speaks to the quiet corners of America or the UK – people who are wrestling with failure, grace, a search for meaning – he speaks to people who live on the margins of society and he gives voice to people who don’t have a voice,’ he told Metro.

Cooper also described the chills he felt on set the first day both Springsteen and 34-year-old White were there.

‘It was spine-tingling seeing the man, the myth, the legend, and then having Jeremy Allen White strip all that away and showing us a Bruce that is unexpected and very raw and vulnerable and truthful,’ he recalled.

Producers Robinson and Ellen Goldsmith-Bein shared that no other story of Springsteen was ‘as pivotal and as transformative in his life than what he was going through when he created Nebraska’, which was ‘why he ultimately agreed to do it’.

‘People have tried, people have approached him to make stories of his life, whether it be about Born to Run or whatever,’ continued Robsinson, ‘but this was on its surface a story about a guy in a bedroom with a tape recorder – how do you make that cinematic?

‘When you read Warren [Zane]’s book the visceral element of his trauma and the mental health that he was living with, and being able to alchemise that into this masterpiece of an album – albeit his least-selling album, which hopefully we’ll change with this film – was so captivating to us because we’ve never seen that in the genre of music biopics, this slice of life of six months to a year; it’s not a cradle to present day story, but something about the transformation of an artist and how it saved him.

‘And his relationship with Jon Landau, that love story at the centre of it, to us was so powerful.’

The producers also revealed that both Landau – played by Jeremy Strong in the film – and Springsteen were ‘involved since the first draft of the script’ (‘that’s why he’s the Boss!’).

‘We flew Scott Cooper to New Jersey to sit with him in the room for hours, where Bruce went through the script with him, line by line, to make sure that it was as authentic as possible and then once we started shooting, he would come to set – if not every day, every day that he could,’ recalled Robinson.

‘There was a couple of days when he was performing up in Montreal – we shot in New Jersey – and he would go, do his show, and then fly home that night so he could be back on set the next morning. If we had a 9am call time and he showed up 10am, he would apologise for being late! To have him there on set with us was pretty remarkable,’ he added.

Odessa Young, who plays Faye Romano in the film – a composite character representing women in Springsteen’s life during the early 80s – also revealed how ‘very encouraging’ he was on set.

‘I think he was always going to be very respectful of what we were doing – he wanted to let us do our interpretation of it, but he would always give us the thumbs up and tell us that we were doing a good job, which was lovely,’ she shared.

The film also stars Stephen Graham as Springsteen’s father Douglas, with whom he had a complicated relationship, as depicted in the movie, Paul Walter Hauser, Gabby Hoffman, David Krumholtz and Grace Gummer.

Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere screened at the London Film Festival on October 15, 16 and 18. It releases in UK cinemas on October 24.

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