Jeremy Allen White Sang Bruce Springsteen’s Big Hits in Deliver Me From Nowhere
THE RUNDOWN
- Jeremy Allen White sings as Bruce Springsteen in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.
- The actor had no experience with music when he was cast in the role.
- His voice can be heard throughout the film.
Jeremy Allen White stars as Bruce Springsteen in the new biopic, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, and the actor was so committed to the role he sang The Boss’s biggest hits. Yes, that’s his actual voice.
The film covers Springsteen’s life as he was working on his 1982 album, Nebraska. Director Scott Cooper knew Allen did not have musical experience when he was cast, but he still wanted him for the role, Allen told The New York Times in August.
“I think they thought that I could tell a complex story with quiet moments, and with physicality,” White shared, adding that he told Cooper, “‘Look, I’d love to do this with you. I love Bruce. Are you sure you don’t want a guy that knows how to do these things already?’ And then, at some point, Scott shared that Bruce wanted me to do it. And at that point I went, ‘OK, I’m not going to stand in this man’s way.’”
The film does contain some of Springsteen’s original recordings, per the NYT, but White is the one singing when he is performing on camera.
The filmed premiered on October 23 at AFI Fest in Hollywood, and The Hollywood Reporter spoke with White’s co-star, Marc Maron, who discussed hearing White sing Springsteen’s songs, saying that it “was pretty amazing.”
He added, “I think he fooled Bruce too, from what I hear. Bruce couldn’t tell on a couple of songs whether it was him or Jeremy—seriously, I’m not making that up. Bruce said that, there you go. I definitely heard that on set, I’m not talking out of school there.”
Cooper also told THR about recording with White for the first time.
“It wasn’t until we got to the RCA very historic recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee that Jeremy started to lay down Bruce’s lyrics that I thought, ‘My god, this is incredible,’” Cooper shared. “I knew he had been enduring the kind of humbling process of becoming Bruce through vocal lessons and guitar lessons and harmonica lessons and movement lessons, but until you see it you have no idea. It was like I was struck by lightning and it was one of the great experiences of my film career.”
In 2024, White told GQ how he was preparing for the role, saying, “I’ve got a really talented group of people helping me train vocally, musically, to get ready for this thing.”
He also told Entertainment Tonight that Springsteen supported his singing after hearing his version of “Mansion on the Hill.”
“This is about three months before we started shooting, and then Bruce listened,” he said. “And Bruce said, ‘It sounds great. You sound like me, but not just like me. You made this song your own, and that’s how I want you to make this film.’ So very early on, I had his permission to make the man my own and make the story my own, which meant a lot.”
And in January this year, Springsteen himself told SiriusXM’s E Street Radio, “He sings very well.”
He also said on The Graham Norton Show, “When he’s singing the songs, he’s leaning into the music’s internal life, and he captures the most important thing about performing a piece of music. Not only does he do that in the song but he also does it in his performance, and it just feels very, very real and very, very authentic.”