The forthcoming Bruce Springsteen film Deliver Me From Nowhere will contain “new information to even his most ardent fans”.
The movie charts the period in The Boss’ life when he recorded his sixth album ‘Nebraska’ (1982), with The Bear star Jeremy Allen White portraying the legendary artist. It is set to arrive in cinemas on October 23.
During a new interview with Empire, writer and director Scott Cooper opened up about how he approached making Deliver Me From Nowhere – which Springsteen has described as “an anti-biopic”.
“[Springsteen] said to me, ‘Scott, the truth about yourself isn’t always pretty’,” Cooper told the publication.
“We discussed that this was going to be a film so far removed from the mythology of the rock star. The thing that was most important to him was that this would be no hagiography.”
He continued, teasing that even Springsteen diehards would learn something: “There’ll be things in this film that will be new information to even Bruce’s most ardent fans – not covered in his Broadway show, or in documentaries, or in his memoir.”
Cooper added: “And he never once asked me to sand off the rough edges. But would you expect anything else from Bruce Springsteen? This man who’s the reluctant moral conscience of America?”
Springsteen recently revealed why he gave Deliver Me From Nowhere the go-ahead, despite it charting a “difficult” time in his life.
“You know, it’s really not a biopic,” he said. “It just takes a couple years out of my life when I was 31 and 32, and looks at them really at a time when I made this particular record, and when I went through some just difficult places in my life, you know. And, I’m old and I don’t give a fuck what I do now.”
The singer-songwriter explained that he and Cooper “had a very specific idea, particularly, of what we were gonna attempt to do” with the film.
Cooper previously praised White’s portrayal of The Boss, saying that the actor had “an intensity of vulnerability and authenticity”. He said: “Jeremy has two things that really, for me, make up Bruce Springsteen, and one is humility. And the other is swagger.”
Critics have largely praised White’s performance in the first reviews of Deliver Me From Nowhere, with one calling his transformation “nothing less than stunning”. Another writer described the movie as an “unorthodox” biopic, while acknowledging Cooper’s “choices that hinder Nowhere from being a truly great film”.
Alongside White, the film stars Succession‘s Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager and producer Jon Landau, Adolescence‘s Stephen Graham as his father Douglas, and The Staircase‘s Odessa Young as love interest Faye Romano.
Springsteen visited White on set in New Jersey late last year before meeting the child actor who plays his younger self, Matthew Anthony Pellicano.
In other news, next month will see Springsteen finally release the legendary electric version of ‘Nebraska’. He has already previewed the collection with a demo version of ‘Born In The U.S.A.’.
