Jeremy Allen White’s journey into the iconic shoes of Bruce Springsteen was filled with moments that tested his very core. One such pivotal experience unfolded at the legendary Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Springsteen himself honed his craft. In the final weeks of filming, White recounted, “I performed about five songs in one day on that stage in front of 300 people.”
Just months earlier, White had been a novice at guitar and vocal training. The scene was stark: a desolate winter boardwalk, and inside, a palpable “heaviness,” as White described the taxing final days of shooting Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, a raw, emotionally charged biopic chronicling the rock legend’s life.
The pressure intensified with an unexpected audience: Springsteen himself, alongside his wife and bandmate, Patti Scialfa, and other luminaries. “Steven Spielberg was there that day,” White recalled, a hint of lingering astonishment in his voice.
For White, whose rapid ascent to heartthrob status and Emmy wins for his role as the intense chef Carmy in the FX series The Bear had just occurred, the stakes of embodying New Jersey’s beloved icon were astronomically high. Deliver Me From Nowhere, hitting theaters this Friday, marks his debut as a leading man in a major studio production. And it’s for Bruuuuuuuuccce.
Jeremy Allen White in a powerful concert scene from ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.’ (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
White explained, “So much of my work as an actor involves a brief, necessary delusion to achieve an honest moment.” He continued, “It was incredibly challenging to tap into that imaginative space or to convince myself when the reality was, I am not this man at all. The man is right here.”
Against all odds, the 34-year-old White succeeded, earning praise from critics and, notably, from Springsteen himself, as evidenced by their numerous joint appearances. White’s nuanced depiction of the musician at a crucial juncture in his early career—during the creation of the raw, acoustic album Nebraska—unearths a fundamental, almost primal, aspect of Springsteen’s artistry. Far from the adoring roar of stadium crowds, this was Springsteen confronting his inner turmoil through song.
Writer-director Scott Cooper shared, “Jeremy and I envisioned this film as a study in restraint, focusing on Bruce at his most subdued, as he quietly grapples with internal struggles.”
Released in 1982, Nebraska represented a radical departure. Springsteen, fresh off the success of his chart-topping The River tour, crafted the album entirely on his own, recording it on a four-track machine in a rented New Jersey home. Instead of the commercial hits his label craved, Nebraska offered somber heartland narratives steeped in profound despair. As detailed in his 2016 memoir, Born to Run, Springsteen experienced a significant emotional breakdown shortly after its completion.
Cooper described the film’s essence: “It’s fundamentally about pursuing something undefinable, an elusive goal whose capture might bring unbearable pain,” referring to the album’s creation and its profound emotional fallout.
Cooper, celebrated for directing Jeff Bridges to an Oscar in Crazy Heart, his 2009 debut about a faded country singer, noted his preference for minimal dialogue. In White, he discovered an actor capable of profound unspoken expression. “You always feel like there’s something alive beneath the surface, something unresolved. And that’s what I needed for Bruce.“
White in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He admitted that performing scenes in front of Bruce Springsteen himself was incredibly daunting: “I was confronted with the fact that, you know, I’m not this man at all.”
Initially, White was hesitant to accept the role, citing his lack of guitar skills and vocal confidence. He was swayed, however, by Springsteen’s personal endorsement. Throughout the filming, White described his emotional state as “fragile. The whole time.”
I recently met White for lunch at the Lambs Club in Times Square, a restaurant typically closed during midday. Dressed casually in light jeans, a blue sweater, a leather jacket (buttoned once, mid-chest, for a stylish touch), and Springsteen’s own worn Yankees hat, White was surprised by our exclusive access. A native New Yorker, he may reside in Los Angeles now, but his roots remain deeply planted in the city, where he still enjoys biking and walking.
The film’s New York Film Festival premiere evoked memories of his youth, particularly his time at the nearby Professional Performing Arts School. At the star-studded after-party, he reminisced, “I was walking down memory lane, thinking about hanging out on all those corners in high school.”
Given White’s meteoric rise to fame—including intense public interest in his personal life and physique—and the weight of portraying an international superstar, I anticipated a guarded, politely distant demeanor, typical of many celebrities. Instead, he was remarkably open, settling into a relaxed, quasi-half-lotus position on the banquette. He spoke candidly about his childhood, his insecurities, and how his career aspirations had dramatically shifted. Despite not having to audition in years, he still felt a strong connection to his earlier days as a struggling New York actor, navigating the city with a backpack full of headshots.
White, along with his younger sister, Annabelle, a documentary producer, spent much of their childhood in Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods, such as Carroll Gardens, where their parents still reside. While his two young daughters (ages 7 and 4, shared with ex-wife Addison Timlin) attend school in Los Angeles, our conversation often returned to the nuances of Brooklyn life and public schooling.
His parents, Eloise Zeigler and Richard White, initially met as theater actors. His mother later became a teacher, and his father established a business filming legal depositions. Before gravitating towards acting, White immersed himself in jazz, tap, and ballet. Even today, on set, a subtle two-step often betrays his nervousness between takes. He wasn’t a lifelong Springsteen devotee; his formative years as a New York teenager in the early 2000s saw his musical tastes lean towards hip-hop legends like Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest.
White and his friends were resourceful city kids. He once recounted how, after finding the keys to their local Park Slope movie theater, they quickly made copies and discreetly returned the originals. “Then we had this key that would get us in the side door,” he shared. “So we were able to, all that summer, go and see movies for free.”
Even as a youthful prankster, White displayed a keen cultural awareness. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, White’s close friend and co-star on The Bear (both are slated for Season 5), affectionately described him as “a good boy from the neighborhood.” Moss-Bachrach, whose Brooklyn loft White occasionally crashes and cooks in, added, “He’s like my brother.” White is known for his openness, often embarking on long bike rides across Brooklyn with Moss-Bachrach, culminating in memorable lunches. “He’s one of the more famous people that I know,” Moss-Bachrach remarked, “And he’s one of the least insulated.”
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, a close friend and colleague, commented on White: “He’s one of the more famous people that I know, and he’s one of the least insulated.”
However, the sudden rush of stardom—after over a decade of consistent work on Showtime’s Shameless—placed White in a situation remarkably similar to Springsteen’s in the early 80s: a critical career juncture post-success. Director Cooper noted, “Those parallels were quite acute for me.” White was the only actor he envisioned for the role. “You only play Bruce Springsteen once, and you only play him at this certain time in your life, where you can completely relate to him.”
Through a simple dye job and brown contact lenses, White’s portrayal of Springsteen masterfully oscillates between the charismatic rock star on stage or in the studio, and a solitary figure battling an internal descent. His primary confidant is his dedicated manager, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong). Boot lifts and a carefully curated leather-and-denim wardrobe aided White in perfecting the physical embodiment. Yet, more often, his Springsteen moved with a profound, dejected slouch. White explained, “I feel like he was one foot in, one foot out the whole time, and never quite sure of himself or anything.”
This personal resonance extended to White’s intense apprehension about his demanding performance. Following each day of filming, he’d frequently call Moss-Bachrach, “just dumping all this anxiety on him,” as White put it. His friend corroborated, “He was feeling like he was really exposed in this part.”
Carmy, White’s character in The Bear, similarly navigates life as a creative soul at a turning point. In the deserted Times Square restaurant, where White conscientiously thanked every server, I inquired why he often found himself cast in roles depicting characters on the brink of a breakdown. He responded, “Bruce is a man who’s looked over the edge, right? And there have been periods in my life where I’ve gotten very close with that too. Doubt, desperation—that’s something that is not totally foreign to me.”
White starring alongside Ebon Moss-Bachrach, with Lionel Boyce observing, in the series ‘The Bear.’ (Photo courtesy of FX, via Associated Press)
He paused, reflecting on his candid admission. “I’m in my early 30s,” he eventually offered, precisely Springsteen’s age in the film. “And I certainly feel like sometimes I’m on top of it. And then other times, I’m losing it, for sure.”
Both the filmmakers and Moss-Bachrach were instrumental in translating White’s raw vulnerability to the screen. Moss-Bachrach observed, “Anytime you can share the kind of most soft-boiled, insecure, wobbly part of you, I think that’s like a nice thing for an artist to do. It makes the world a little bit smaller.”
Beyond that, White possesses a remarkable talent for conveying emotion. “He doesn’t perform pain, despair,” Cooper noted. “It just kind of flickers across his face.” Moss-Bachrach effused, “He’s got this autobahn between his brain and his eyes. You just see thoughts—or you think you see thoughts. He’s just living the scene.”
White’s entry into acting was serendipitous, thanks to his middle school drama teacher, John P. McEneny. He recalls the black box theater at M.S. 51 in Park Slope as “the first time in my life I felt like I was able to quiet an otherwise very anxious mind.” He added, “I still find a lot of peace in that sort of space onstage, or between action and cut. I felt so lucky that I found it at such a young age.”
In eighth grade, he and his classmates persuaded McEneny to stage a Shakespeare double-feature: Twelfth Night (where White shone as the comedic Malvolio) and Macbeth (taking on both the sword-fighting Macduff and an ethereal witch). “The parents sat through four hours of middle school drama,” laughed McEneny, who has since retired from teaching and now leads a local theater company as a playwright. He remembered White as exceptionally serious and focused, calling him “one of the most remarkable child actors I’ve ever taught in 30 years.”
McEneny observed that White “could play broken and strong and fierce,” and that he deeply yearned “to be in more rooms where he could create these characters.” With his parents’ consent, McEneny guided him toward professional auditions, leading White to secure an agent by the age of 14 or 15.
His youthful ambitions were modest: an indie film, a stage play, or a couple of Law & Order episodes, White recalled, saying, “and that would be enough for a year. I’d live in Park Slope. That sounded perfect to me.” Interestingly, he achieved all these goals while still a teenager.
White reflected: “I’m in my early 30s, and I certainly feel like sometimes I’m on top of it. And then other times, I’m losing it, for sure.”
Today, White’s career narrative resembles an intense training montage. For The Bear, he immersed himself in culinary school and worked in Michelin-starred kitchens. For The Iron Claw, a 2023 A24 drama about a wrestling family, he bulked up and mastered wrestling techniques.
For Deliver Me From Nowhere, White undertook rigorous preparation, working with a movement coach, a guitar teacher, a vocal instructor, and a harmonica teacher. The performance scenes were strategically scheduled last, allowing him ample time to practice on a special gift from Springsteen: a Gibson J200, the very model used for Nebraska.
White mused that “having a shared experience with the character you’re playing, it’s just like a trick to get you a little bit closer, you know?” He clarified, “But no, I’m not making it easy for myself by any means, and it’s not on purpose.”
However, some close to him would gently disagree: White is undeniably passionate about acting and deeply ambitious. “He’ll always take big swings,” Moss-Bachrach affirmed. Despite his worries, White’s stage performances often captured Springsteen’s raw intensity, complete with sweaty hair and taut neck tendons. Ultimately, White found immense value in Springsteen’s presence, describing it as “ultimately a real permission.”
Yet, White wasn’t—and perhaps couldn’t truly be—the superstar. This, ironically, might have been the core message. “I had some breakthrough moments where I understood more, or understood him, or I found some confidence in this aspect or that,” he confided. “But I never felt like I got it.”
Springsteen has reportedly viewed the film almost a dozen times at various global premieres and festivals. White, by contrast, has only seen it once.