Playing Bruce Springsteen is a daunting prospect. Playing Bruce Springsteen while he’s sitting in front of you is a level up.
Apparently, you get used to having him around, on call to answer any questions you might have about his walk or about taping on a four-track recorder in his bedroom.
Just ask Jeremy Allen White. The breakout star of The Bear is sidling into awards season with his depiction of the Boss in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, a soulful account of a dark time in Springsteen’s life as the singer jostled with the huge success of his album The River, from 1980, unprocessed childhood trauma and the simultaneous creation of his albums Nebraska and Born in the USA, which followed in 1982 and 1984.
“I only really knew Bruce as a performer,” White says. “I’d heard him speak and always thought he seemed like a deep and reasonable man, mostly from his lyricism. But I didn’t know much about him personally. The first time we met, I saw him perform on stage – he was 75 – and he delivered with the same passion and almost violent energy I’d seen in all the old concert footage I was studying.
“Then I spoke to him aft
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