Jeremy Allen White’s mantlepiece is already creaking under the weight of countless trophies. Over the past three years, The Bear’s tormented chef extraordinaire has amassed three SAG Awards, three Golden Globes, two Emmys, and two Critics’ Choice Awards. This coming awards season, though, he might have to clear some space on it—you’re about to see him in his next, no-holds-barred, big-screen turn in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, in which he plays The Boss himself.
Directed by Crazy Heart’s Scott Cooper, this isn’t a conventional, cradle-to-main stage musical biopic. Instead it takes inspiration from Warren Zanes’s Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, focusing on a very specific and formative chapter in Bruce’s life. Coming off of the immense success of 1980’s The River, the first Springsteen album to top the charts, the 31-year-old wanted to create something quieter, darker, more folksy and intimate. He decamped to a silent farmhouse in Colts Neck, New Jersey, and, while battling a kind of depression he couldn’t quite name yet, recorded his new songs alone at home as demos in which he laid bare his soul.
The result was 1982’s Nebraska, an acoustic gem released with no tour, press, or lead single. Bruce didn’t even want his face on the cover. Still, it reached number three on the Billboard chart, and is remembered by many as one of Springsteen’s finest records to date.
Alongside Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, and Stephen Graham as his abusive, domineering father, mostly seen through terrifying black-and-white flashbacks, Jeremy Allen White is a revelation as the publicly revered and privately tortured superstar. Sure, there’s more than a trace of Carmy’s neurosis in his Bruce—the reticent, haunted interiority, the simmering frustration, the overwhelming passion for his art, qualities also present in his recent embodiment of Kerry Von Erich in Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw—but this is also an entirely new creation. In several scenes, and especially in the electric, sweat-soaked musical performances, White seems to transform into Springsteen right in front of us. It’s in his movement, voice, mannerisms, and impassioned singing, which, if you close your eyes, sounds exactly, almost spookily like Bruce’s.
I meet Jeremy at Claridge’s, where the 34-year-old Brooklynite is hiding out while in town for the London Film Festival. Dressed in pale blue jeans, black boots, and a fuzzy dark blue cardigan, layered over an open blue-striped shirt and a white tank, with a gold chain glinting from his neck, he’s thoughtful, soft-spoken, and unfailingly polite, his bright blue eyes (hidden behind dark brown contacts in Springsteen) wandering dreamily as he searches for his answers.
Ahead of the film’s release in theaters on October 24, he discusses being persuaded to take the part by Bruce himself, the intense pressure of performing while the musician watched him on set, borrowing his clothes, the explosive Season 4 finale of The Bear, his upcoming part in The Social Network sequel, and the flowers he likes to keep around him while on the road.
Vogue: I know you had some reservations about taking this part, but both Scott Cooper and Bruce Springsteen himself persuaded you to do it?
Jeremy Allen White: I’d been a fan of Scott’s for such a long time, and he and I had gotten together a couple of months before I knew anything about this. We spoke about movies and actors—he’s had such amazing actors in all his previous films, and I had a lot of questions about Robert Duvall, Rory Cochrane, and Christian Bale. I thought, Maybe one day we’ll work together. Then Scott asked me to listen to Nebraska. It’d probably been 10 years since I last listened to it. I called him after, and he said he’d like me to play Bruce.
It’s such an honor. I’ve been an admirer of Bruce’s for a long time, but I think… I just wasn’t sure. With the jobs I take, I want to be sure that I’m the right person for it. I don’t think everybody’s right for every job. I’d never had any sort of singing training or played the guitar, and I knew that’d be important. But, Scott sent me the script, and then I realized the film would be quite focused on one period of Bruce’s life—when he was a man looking over the edge and questioning so many things, doubting so much and living in fear. I didn’t know about this period. I thought about it for about a week—I was so excited, but cautious. Then Scott said, “Bruce really wants you to do this.” I was like, “Okay, well, if he thinks I’m the guy and I can offer something, then I should try.”
The first time you met Bruce, he was onstage at Wembley?
That’s right. I’d never been to Wembley before and it was amazing being there. It was really emotional even before we met—walking into that empty stadium, knowing 90,000 people would be here in two hours. Then I watched Bruce do his sound check with his band. It was intimidating—he’s so passionate and there’s almost a violence and physicality to his performance, even without an audience. After the show, he found me in the pit. I was by myself and he called me up, and he was so soft and gentle and kind of the opposite of the performer I’d just seen. I asked about his grandkids and we spoke about my kids, and then we went back to his dressing room and talked more about the movie and that period of his life. I got to ask him what was really going on in his head during that time, and he was very honest and available to me from the beginning.
He also gave you a guitar that you then learned to play? What else was useful when you were preparing?
That meant a lot. In terms of preparing, his music was important—Nebraska, but also his earlier stuff, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born to Run, and The River, which is where we meet him in this film. Also concert footage and this post-show interview Bruce had done in that period on The Old Grey Whistle Test, which I found helpful. He’s been so open, especially in the last 10 years. There’s his one-man show, his memoir, biographies, Warren [Zanes’s] book. What I found most helpful was the level of detail in his memoir, and also getting to speak to people like Jimmy Iovine, Patti [Scialfa, Bruce’s wife and bandmate], and Jon Landau. As honest as Bruce is, it’s often helpful to get other people’s perspectives, too.
I love the energy of the musical sequences in the film—they’re just so sweaty and electric. I read that you lost your voice at one point?
We pre-recorded a lot of the music, and then there’s some live music as well, especially in the house in Colts Neck, where Bruce recorded Nebraska. I recorded “Born in the USA” at the same recording station where we perform it in the film, a week prior to us starting principal photography. It’s such a physical and difficult song to sing, and I totally lost my voice.
During our first week of filming, Bruce was often on set, too. In the first week of any job, you’re finding your footing and it’s always tough. I remember just being concerned. I’d spent time with Bruce before and he’d been so supportive, but I think the darkest and most insecure part of myself was thinking that he was there to critique what was happening. So that was ever-present with me in that first week. But then he kept showing up, and after a certain point it became very normal. He stayed at a distance and just let me know he was there if I needed him. He was really wonderful.
The first time I sang in the film was in the house in Colts Neck. I remember Bruce and Jon being there and the weight of that day. It was strange and heavy and there was pressure, but I think that, hopefully, helps you focus. After I shook off the nerves, sat in the chair, and got the harmonica around my neck, I felt very present and, eventually, comfortable. If he wasn’t there, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to approach it with the same seriousness.
And you also wore some of his own clothes?
A couple of pieces—there’s a blue flannel shirt which I wear a few times, and then my favorite piece, which was this sort of tattered white Triumph shirt that I wore for a scene at the end, when I go to see a therapist. I thought, If there’s ever a time to try and feel as close to Bruce as possible, it’s that.
I heard that Bruce cried when he first saw the film. How did he respond to your performance?
He was very touched and complimentary, and very proud of Scott and me. But it took me longer to watch the film. I just don’t like watching myself, well… ever, really. I knew I would with this one, at some point, but I was really taking my time. It was actually very funny and sweet—every couple of weeks, I’d get a text from Bruce, like, “The movie’s really great. You should see it. You’re really wonderful. If you watched it, you would know.”
When the film was ready, I was about to start another job and so I didn’t want to watch something right before I started something else, or be in my head or anything. But I ended up watching it right before Telluride, where we premiered it. I called Bruce after and it was lovely.
Coming on to The Bear, is Season 5 already filmed? And how do you feel about where we left Carmy? This is quite a seismic moment for him.
We haven’t shot the next season yet. It’s interesting because we shot this last finale back in 2024, but then filmed a lot of earlier Season 4 episodes in 2025, so it’s a weird thing. It feels like a very long time ago. Carmy shed so much in that finale and came clean in so many ways. He’s trying to do what he thinks is right or best. But then, working backwards a year later was a strange experience. But I remember that last episode being so fun, because we shot it like a play. There were three cameras and then Ayo [Edebiri], Ebon [Moss-Bachrach], myself, and Abby [Elliott] at the tail end. It took 36 minutes to perform and we did it like four times. I’m always so touched by the way [creator] Chris [Storer] writes and develops this story, and I wish I could act with all those guys forever, honestly, if there was a way to figure that out.
You’re also going to reunite with Jeremy Strong for The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to The Social Network. How much can you tell us at this point?
If The Social Network was about the beginnings and the creation of Facebook, this film is about the effects of Facebook, the reach of Facebook, the checks and balances, or lack thereof.
Will you get to work on something a bit lighter at any point?
I don’t know [laughs]. Maybe I’m wrong, but with The Social Reckoning, it’s interesting because the external issues are very real and heavy, but the character I’m playing [The Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horowitz, who exposed Facebook’s inner workings], while his pursuit and purpose is very just and weighty, to my eyes, he seems internally… very sound, I guess? That’s exciting for me.
I’m really pleased for you. Touching on fashion briefly, I feel like you’re doing some method dressing on the red carpet at the moment? You’ve been wearing more leather, plaid, jeans, and some Bruce-inspired looks?
We’re trying to, absolutely. He had and still has such great style, so I think it’s a very obvious source of inspiration to draw from.
Ayo’s also here at the London Film Festival now with After the Hunt. Has it been fun to be on this awards season circuit together, but for your own films this time?
It’s been so nice. The only thing I’m bummed about is that we’re all so busy. What I’d really like to do is just be here watching my friends’ movies. I saw Ayo when I got in the other day, we went out to dinner and it was really nice. I saw my buddy Frank Dillane last night, too, who is wonderful in Harris Dickinson’s movie, Urchin. I’m very excited to see After the Hunt, I just haven’t had the chance yet.
And I’m guessing that means you’ve been too busy to go to Columbia Road Flower Market, too, or do any flower-purchasing while you’ve been in London?
I wish! It’s such an interesting thing and people have been so sweet about it, but I feel like flowers have been a bigger part of my life, it seems like, over the last few years.
Is that right?
Well, I think people just associate me with flowers in a way, whereas before it was just something I did kind of privately? I keep getting flowers, too, but then I have to leave them behind because you can’t travel with them.
What are your favorite flowers right now?
It’s not really a flower, but I like to have eucalyptus in the house. It always lasts a really long time and smells really nice. I have them in the shower and on the bedside table. And then, if I can find a sunflower that’s really closed up, and I know it’s going to last for two weeks, I’d get that. It’s all very economical. I’m like, What can I put in there that’ll look nice, smell nice, and last?
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will be in theaters from October 24.
