You know him as the star of restaurant drama 'The Bear', but Jeremy Allen White has spent the past year trying to get inside the mind of Bruce Springsteen. Here, he tells us how he became The Boss for new biopic 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' – from intense vocal training that left him gasping for air to developing a true and lasting friendship with a rock and roll legend.
00:00And I think the chapter on Nebraska is about a page and a half.
00:03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03And that's where Warren went, hold on a second.
00:06What's like, why are we skipping over this period?
00:10I'm trying to find something real.
00:12These new songs, they're different, but they're the only thing making sense to me right now.
00:18The only thing I can still believe in.
00:20Then we'll get it.
00:21Whatever it takes.
00:23Hi, I'm Alex from Enemy, and today I'm joined by the star of new Bruce Springsteen movie,
00:27delivering me from nowhere, it's Hollywood's brand new boss, Jeremy Allen White.
00:32How are we doing?
00:32Hello, I'm good, I'm good, thank you, yeah.
00:34So I've been in the Enemy Archive, and so I thought we'd start maybe by taking a bit of a trip down memory lane,
00:41because I know you've been so immersed in Bruce, but you might not have seen some of these covers from sort of back in the day.
00:45Oh, all right, yeah.
00:46So this one, this is definitely my favourite.
00:50It is, do you want to take a quick look there?
00:52Oh, wow.
00:52Bruce's The Word from 1978.
00:55Oh, that's great.
00:56My first thought is that in that Q&A the other night, he said he wasn't very handsome, but here's the evidence.
01:00Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, he's very, very handsome.
01:03Yeah, he's messing about.
01:04That's right, yeah, really scraggly.
01:07He put on all this weight kind of right after this period of the film that, you know, we see him in.
01:13It was right around Born in the USA.
01:15He made a point.
01:16He kind of started, like, lifting weights and all that, but in the 70s, yeah, he was wiry, but still tough, very handsome.
01:22And then I've got another one, which I think is actually quite a good sort of conversation starting point for this film, which is Fools in the USA from the 80s.
01:30I think it's 85, maybe.
01:32Oh, wow.
01:33A bit later.
01:34But what it does sort of tap into is this sort of idea of this misreading of that song, Born in the USA.
01:40Yeah, yeah.
01:40And it's still, yeah, misunderstood.
01:43Yeah, yeah.
01:43As Bruce is this kind of sort of flag-toting, jingoistic kind of, like, American, when it's the exact opposite of that.
01:50Exactly.
01:50And I think this film might be sort of the last stage in the deconstruction of that kind of idea.
01:56Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of depth in Bruce's music and a lot of, like, misinterpretation.
02:04I've misinterpreted.
02:05We speak about reason to believe often.
02:07I'll talk to Bruce about that song and how I've sort of received it and interpreted it.
02:12And then he talks about his sort of, you know.
02:15You're completely wrong.
02:16His writing, exactly.
02:17Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:18But there's, like, a nice, there's an interesting conversation there.
02:22I mean, you know, it's like any art, anything you do, if it's film, if it's TV, it's a painting, book, whatever it is, music.
02:32Once you give it away, it sort of is up for interpretation.
02:36So no matter how you mean something, it's out of your hands how it's received, you know.
02:42What did you tell him that you thought the song was about and what did he say?
02:45I think it's a common misconception, I think, that the last song is a song of hope, according to Bruce Springsteen.
02:54However, that is how I hear it.
02:56You know, there's a verse speaking about a man who's left his wife and, you know, she's walking to the end of this dirt road, sort of waiting for him to come back.
03:06And I see a tremendous amount of sort of romance in that, that waiting and every day taking that walk and looking each way and wondering.
03:17But I suppose there's another way of looking like that.
03:20There's a desperation and a hopelessness in that act.
03:24What if they never do come back?
03:25I guess I just always hope they'll come back, you know.
03:29Tell me about the process of becoming Bruce.
03:31Was there an audition?
03:33No, no.
03:34You know, Scott and I got together about two months before I knew anything about this film.
03:39Scott Cooper, our director and writer.
03:41And it was just kind of a general hang.
03:45And, you know, I'd been a fan of his for a long time, his films.
03:48And we kind of just spoke about films we liked and the actors we liked.
03:54And he's used some of my favorite actors in his films over the years.
03:57And so I just asked a lot of questions, really.
04:00And I said, I hope we can find something.
04:02And he said, you know, I hope so, too.
04:04But that was that.
04:06And then a couple of months later, I was asked to listen to the album, Nebraska.
04:10And I think I understood kind of what was going on.
04:14It's quite hard to miss.
04:15Yeah.
04:15And I gave him a call, and he said, you know, I'd like you to play Bruce.
04:20Do you know anything about, really, the making of this record?
04:23And I said, you know, I knew that he made it alone, which at the time was, like, a fairly radical thing to do.
04:31These days, it's more common, you know, to make a record, you know, in your bedroom or whatever.
04:36But at the time, it was kind of far out.
04:39But I didn't know anything about sort of his personal life during that time.
04:43I didn't know anything about the inspiration.
04:47All of these things were new to me.
04:49And so I read the script and then eventually read Warren's, you know, book by the same title.
04:54And that was getting started.
04:56I mean, that was, it was really just trying to learn as much as I could about this time in Bruce's life and prior.
05:02And I'm very lucky, you know, there's a tremendous amount of kind of footage and interviews.
05:08And I think especially in the last 10 years between Bruce's memoir and his one-man show, he's become very forthcoming and honest about, you know, not only his childhood, but specifically his relationship to his father.
05:21And more about this period.
05:24But, you know, the birth of Warren's book has always been really interesting to me because it really came from this place of, you know, Bruce's memoir and his recall is so incredible.
05:35And you get, it's a long book and it's very detailed.
05:40And I think the chapter on Nebraska is about a page and a half.
05:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:43And that's where Warren went, hold on a second.
05:46What's like, why are we skipping over this period?
05:50And that's when he began, you know, investigating.
05:53Yeah.
05:55Songwriting's a funny thing.
05:59It's about searching for something.
06:02Something that's going to give your life a little bit of meaning.
06:06And I want to ask you about the Born to Run performance.
06:09Yeah.
06:09Two things, really.
06:10One, did you get to use the actual Bruce Telecaster?
06:14And two, your voice must have been torn to shreds by the end.
06:17It was shredded.
06:20No, it's not the actual one, but a very, very good, you know, copy.
06:24Someone took a chisel to it.
06:25Exactly.
06:26But I did, I mean, I've spoken about this before, but, you know, he recorded in Nebraska on, I forget if it was in 1953 or 1954, Gibson J200.
06:35Yeah.
06:36And after our first meeting at Wembley, I got a call saying Bruce would like to send me something.
06:44And it was a 1955 Gibson J200.
06:47And I still have that guitar.
06:48That was a gift.
06:49That's what I learned to play on.
06:51So when I was recording all the stuff for Nebraska, the album, you know, in the house and Kult's Neck, that was my guitar I learned that you see in the film.
07:02And that's the guitar I have at home.
07:05For Born to Run, and especially Born in the USA, yeah, shredded.
07:10I mean, those are very physical songs and very, like, difficult songs to perform, yeah.
07:18How did it feel?
07:19Because there's a live audience in that scene, right?
07:21Yeah.
07:22And you're playing in the scene.
07:24When you sort of step out on stage for the first time, dressed as Bruce Springsteen, that must be quite intimidating.
07:29Yeah, I mean, I think the interesting thing, you know, like it is so often for an actor, you know, you have a really great director in Scott Cooper and great department heads and crews and background actors.
07:42And everything is as real as it can possibly be.
07:45And then you realize most often, like, you're the pretender in this situation, you know.
07:51You know, for that piece, I felt a little bit of it that, you know, there were other musicians on stage with me.
07:56But I remember really when I felt that, but also got carried away was, you know, the Stone Pony.
08:02I was with the guys from Greta.
08:03I was with Jay Buchanan.
08:05I was with 300 background actors that actually filled the entirety of the Stone Pony because it's a smaller venue.
08:12They were all from, like, in and around Asbury Parks.
08:15They were big Bruce fans.
08:16Bruce introduced me, so he got them really warm.
08:18Oh, God.
08:19And so everything is as real as can be, except for me.
08:24But because the environment was so true, it allowed me, you know, usually you have to use a lot of imagination to kind of get yourself there.
08:34And I remember specifically at the Stone Pony, it wasn't necessary.
08:38You know, I got so carried away with the crowd, with Jay, and being in that true environment where Bruce came up and Bruce continues to perform.
08:49You know, you've obviously probably got to convince quite a lot of people that you can do this role, as with any film.
08:55But was there a moment where you sort of looked over at Bruce, maybe on the set or beforehand, and you thought, yeah, he approves now?
09:01Yeah, I mean, there was the first time I recorded Nebraska, I think, which was the first time I was really singing on set.
09:12That scene with Paul Walter Hauser is the first song that's kind of recorded for the record.
09:17I was passing Video Village.
09:19I knew Bruce was there that day, but I didn't want to see him on my way to set because I just needed to stay in what I was doing.
09:25And he found me, and he held me, and he looked in my eyes, and he gave me a hug after that recording.
09:32And that gave me a tremendous amount of confidence, I think, going forward and being able to finish the film.
09:40You did a bang-up job.
09:42Absolutely pleasure to watch film and interview.
09:43So thanks so much for speaking to me.
09:47Trying to find something real in all the noise.
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