Jeremy Allen White Undergoing a ‘Punishing Transformation’ to Play Bruce Springsteen in New Film
Jeremy Allen White is all in on playing Bruce Springsteen in an upcoming movie, Deliver Me From Nowhere, but he’s yet to meet The Boss in person – as a source exclusively lays out for Life & Style how The Bear heartthrob is finding the project as challenging as anything he’s ever taken on.
“Jeremy could have partied his ass off all summer and taken a victory lap for his latest season of The Bear, but instead he has put himself through this punishing transformation into Bruce Springsteen during what was one of the darkest chapters of his career,” reveals an insider close to the project.
“Jeremy has faced his own fair share of adversity and saw this job as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” the source says.
The Bear star, 33, opened up about his preparation for the role to GQ on August 27.
“There’s just so much footage,” the actor said. “It’s really great to go down a YouTube rabbit hole and find him at all these different periods in his life and be able to listen to his speaking voice as well as his singing voice.”
“That’s kind of been the deal, just listening to him a lot and watching him a lot. It’s been really fun preparing,” he stated.
While the Shameless actor has yet to meet The Boss, 74, he’s psyching himself up for the eventual sit down.
“I’m trying to have a bit of my own process,” Jeremy explained.
“I want to have an understanding, so when I meet him, I’ll have a bit of confidence somewhere in me to stand there.”
The source notes that the movie, directed and written by Scott Cooper, who previously worked on Crazy Heart and Hostiles, is based on Warren Zane’s 2023 book, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.
However, the film intends to be different than most that cover the lives and careers of famous musicians, many of which have topped the box office in recent years.
“This is not Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman,” the source says.
Both movies explored the lives of their subjects, Freddy Mercury and Elton John respectively, over many decades, similar to 2005’s Walk the Line with Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Elvis in 2022, starring Austin Butler.
The reason is that “Bruce is reserving the right for a full biopic to be made later in his life,” spills the insider. Which means that the upcoming flick will only focus on a short episode of the musician’s long and storied career.
“[Jeremy] genuinely gets bent out of shape when people call this movie a quote-unquote ‘biopic.’”
“And he's right to,” the insider argues.
“Deliver Me From Nowhere is a short, simple story about one instance in Bruce's life where he was battling severe depression and struggling to record his seminal album Nebraska.”
“Jeremy and the filmmakers are trying to make an honest and unflinching portrayal of depression, not rock superstardom, and they're sticking to that plan like they're on orders from Bruce himself!”
