How Bruce Springsteen's Darkest Moment Inspired Jeremy Allen White's Role as The Boss in Rocker's 'Anti-Biopic'

Jeremy Allen White found himself in a rare position for an actor – receiving direct insight from the icon he was set to portray.

The 34-year-old star of The Bear plays Bruce Springsteen in the new feature Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, and OK! can report he has now revealed how the rock legend, 76, opening up about his own mental struggles was key to helping him inhabit him on screen.

He said: "[I asked Bruce,] 'Why this film? Why this period?' And even what happened on this journey, on this road trip, in really specific moments. And he was immediately so honest. He talked to me about a panic attack he'd had, and he described it as in this moment he felt like he was like a voyeur in his own life. He was an observer. He felt so outside of himself, and he told me that story, and that's a feeling I'm familiar with."

White added: "I think I'm always trying to find some presence in my own life, and I worked very hard at it every day. And when he told me that story and made me familiar with that feeling, I knew there was a tether that I could explore there."

Sources close to the production say Springsteen's candidness helped White capture both the emotional nuance and physical mannerisms of the singer during the early 1980s, a period marked by personal isolation and creative struggle.

The film chronicles Springsteen's return to his New Jersey hometown while working on the 1982 album Nebraska, a notoriously raw and introspective record. White had no prior musical background, but the director, Scott Cooper, said the actor "had an intensity of vulnerability and authenticity that I saw in Bruce's work and in archival interviews with Bruce."

He added: "Jeremy has two things that really, for me, make up Bruce Springsteen, and one is humility. And the other is swagger."

Springsteen told audiences at the premiere of his biopic: "I want to thank everybody for coming out to see our film tonight and our crew, a great cast. Jeremy Allen White for putting his whole heart and soul into the part, just such a wonderful job, and for playing a much better looking version of me. I'm really thankful for that."

Springsteen has also explained why he agreed to the project, describing it as an "anti-biopic."

Speaking at the Telluride Film Festival, he said: "What brought this one along was that I think we had a very specific idea – Scott had a very specific idea, particularly, of what we were gonna attempt to do. And, for lack of a better word, it was an anti-biopic. You know, it's really not a biopic – it just takes a couple years out of my life when I was 31 and 32 and looks at them really at a time when I made this particular record, and when I went through some just difficult places in my life, you know. And, I'm old and I don't give a f--- what I do now."

Another source familiar with the production said Springsteen's willingness to share intimate details of his personal life, including depression and isolation, created a "unique openness on set that helped Jeremy really understand the man behind the music."

The insider added: "Bruce was incredibly protective of his story but also generous. He made it clear that he trusted Jeremy to interpret him without fear of embellishment."

Springsteen also shared a touching moment from the first screening, watching the film alongside his sister Pamela, who appears in several flashbacks.

He said: "I got to watch the film with my one-year-younger sister who is just a little blonde girl on the film, but it was actually a little brown, short-haired girl. But she sat there with me and we watched the film and she held onto my hand, and at the end of it, she turns to me and says, 'Isn't it wonderful we have this?'"

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is now streaming worldwide, offering a window into one of the most formative and private chapters of the Boss' storied life, filtered through the rising star's empathetic performance.