“Bruce came out of the movie with tears in his eyes...”
It’s one level of pressure be making a film about Bruce Springsteen, but it’s another entirely knowing that the subject himself is about to visit the set. Director Scott Cooper was only four days into shooting Deliver Me From Nowhere, his Jeremy Allen White-starring cinematic portrait of Springsteen, based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 Nebraska-era biography, when the Boss dropped by one of the movie’s various New Jersey locations.
“Look, any time you’re making a film about a cultural icon and someone who’s as legendary as Bruce, there’s always trepidation, right?” Cooper tells MOJO. “But Bruce was never directive. He was only there for counsel if I had questions about, What exactly was your emotional state? We were shooting in very specific, authentic places that Bruce spent a lot of time in. What was it like here? Am I capturing this exactly as it was? Because even though it’s not a documentary, I wanted it to almost feel like one.”
One insight that Springsteen revealed early on stuck in the director’s head. “Bruce told me, ‘The truth about yourself isn’t always pretty.’ Bruce is so far removed from the mythology of the rock star in this movie. He said the thing that was the most important to him was that this would be no hagiography. He was proud of everything in his life, including all of his flaws, because he was conscious of them.”
Deliver Me From Nowhere captures White-as-Springsteen in a moment of doubt and pain, haunted by childhood trauma caused by his domineering and abusive father, compounded by a post-fame identity crisis, and embarking upon the soul mining exercise that resulted in the stark and haunted Nebraska. From a re-enactment of the rowdy Born To Run encore of the last show on the year-long The River tour (at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, on September 14, 1981), it plunges us into the stillness of a rented house in Colts Neck, New Jersey where the atoms of Nebraska begin slowly to cohere.
“It’s very raw, it’s uncompromising, it’s vulnerable,” says Cooper. “I hope people find that it’s deeply moving, and most of all, I hope people find that it’s relatable, because it’s a film about mental illness, and mental illness touches so many of us. I wanted to strip away the iconography of Bruce Springsteen and find a man at a crossroads in his life, a very painful time in his life. So it’s less a traditional musical biopic, more a film about the psychological act of creation, where a neglected soul is repairing itself through music.”
As low-key and intimate in tone as Nebraska itself, much of the film’s success rests upon Jeremy Allen White’s intense portrayal of the singer, his heavy internal weather playing on his face (the actor’s ability to subtly carry pain having been proven already in his role as troubled chef Carmy Berzatto in Disney series The Bear). Remarkably, in re-recordings of Nebraska songs, White sings, and plays guitar and harmonica (tutored in the latter by seasoned Willie Nelson harp-player Mickey Raphael). His performances were similarly run through a TEAC 144 Portastudio and Echoplex tape delay unit, lending further sonic authenticity.
Exiles from E Street: Springsteen and band in the studio in Deliver Me From Nowhere, including (from left) Marc Maron (Chuck Plotkin), Johnny Cannizzaro (Steve Van Zandt) Jeremy Strong (Jon Landau) and Jeremy Allen White (Springsteen).
According to Cooper, there were times with the recordings where he – and even Springsteen – “couldn’t tell the difference between Jeremy and Bruce”. Meanwhile, lingering camera shots of the 4-track (operated by Mike Batlan, portrayed in the film by Paul Walter Hauser) almost fetishise the cassette multitrack. The director predicts that eBay prices on the units will shoot up following the film’s release. “Because in a time of overproduction and noise,” he argues, “I think people are craving simplicity.”
Moreover, Cooper reckons the proto lo-fi sound of Nebraska is itself symbolic of Springsteen’s state of mind during the recording. “This eerie, spacious quality becomes almost a metaphor for the emotional distance and the alienation that defines the songs and Bruce’s inner world during this period.”
Among the supporting cast are Succession’s Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau, and Stephen Graham (in black and white flashback) as Springsteen’s father, Douglas ‘Dutch’ Springsteen. With his first on-set sighting of the latter, the singer said, “My god, Scott, it’s like looking at my father.” Electing to witness the filming of potentially triggering domestic scenes from his past, Bruce half-joked, “I’ve got a therapist on speed dial.”
“There were many times in the filming that Bruce had to excuse himself from the set,” Cooper reveals. “I think some of those memories were too painful.”
Jeremy Strong, meanwhile, cuts a quietly powerful figure as Landau, protecting Springsteen’s vision for Nebraska in the face of Columbia Records’ exec Al Teller’s commercial concerns about the record. “I think he brilliantly conveys Landau’s intellect, his fierce loyalty, his emotional intelligence,” says Cooper. “And he grounds the film in this complex friendship. Because this is the primary relationship in the movie, and it’s really a love story. He just gives a wonderfully restrained and beautiful performance.”
Who's the boss? Jeremy Allen White (left) as Springsteen and Jeremy Stong (right) and manager Jon Landau.
Landau, too, was on hand as script advisor. “It was about specificity,” notes the director. “Perhaps I would write a scene, and Jon might say, ‘Well, that happened, but here’s something else that happened that I would put in the film.’ So again, having access to Bruce and Jon was a godsend.”
When Springsteen saw the completed film, the depth of his emotional reaction more than validated Cooper’s efforts. “He comes out with tears in his eyes,” Cooper says. “He kisses me and hugs me and says, ‘Scott, it far exceeds anything I could have ever hoped.’”
As to the notion – also floated around the release of James Mangold’s early Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown – that there may be other stories to be told in a cinematic ‘Springsteenverse’, Scott Cooper is entirely amenable.
“There’s so many eras of Bruce’s life that are ripe for cinematic treatment,” he enthuses. “Perhaps the difficulty in writing Born To Run and recording it, or the struggle after Nebraska between Jon and Bruce where Bruce wanted to keep writing in the same vein. “I think there are many movies one could make about Bruce Springsteen. I suppose it depends if the audience sees this and feels like they want to see more from this team.”
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Western stars: Jon Landau, Jeremy Strong, Scott Cooper, Bruce Springsteen and Jeremy Allen White, Telluride Film Festival, Colorado. 29 August , 2025 (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images)
For now, Scott Cooper feels that he has accomplished his mission with Deliver Me From Nowhere. “Bruce said something to me early on that I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Just don’t look away from the truth.’ And I didn’t.”
Deliver Me From Nowhere opens in UK cinemas on October 24.
Get the latest issue of MOJO to read our exclusive interview with Bruce Springsteen about the enduring magic of his troubled masterpiece Nebraska, the release of the fabled 'Electric Nebraska' sessions and more. More information and to order a copy HERE!
