Fans will have to wait until Oct. 24 to see the eagerly anticipated Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere. But they got a teaser on Wednesday morning (June 18) when the first trailer for the film starring The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White as the Boss dropped, revealing the shape and mood of the film that will follow the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s introspective sessions for his stark, 1982 acoustic album Nebraska.
The two-and-a-half minute preview opens with White as Springsteen sitting in a Camaro on a car lot as he tells the salesman that he’s never owned a new vehicle before. “It’s awfully fitting for a handsome devil rock star,” the salesman says, tipping his hat that he knows exactly who his low-key, famous client is. “Well that makes one of us,” White replies.
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We next see Springsteen in his New Jersey bedroom with his guitar tech Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser) as he works out the stripped-down sound of the Nebraska title track. “Don’t need to be perfect,” he tells Batlan, “I want it to feel like I’m in the room by myself.”
Director Scott Cooper’s movie also features Emmy and Golden Globe winner Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s longtime manager and confidant Jon Landau, who is seen telling a record exec that his client’s deeply personal album is “not about the charts. This is about Bruce Springsteen and these are the songs that he wants to work on right now,” as White moans out the lyrics to the album’s haunting title song.
Over images of White looking at old pictures, Strong tells a story about the singer’s childhood bedroom, which had a hole in its floor. That hole becomes a metaphor for Springsteen’s complicated relationship with his withholding father (played by Adolescence‘s Stephen Graham). “Bruce is a repairman,” Strong says. “And what he’s doing with this album is he’s repairing that hole in his floor. He’s repairing that hole in himself… and once he’s done that, he’s going to repair the entire world.”
The two-and-a-half-minute trailer ends with triumphant footage of a sweat-drenched White howling “Born to Run” on stage with the E Street Band, the veins in his neck strained to the extreme as he pulls off one of the rocker’s signature stage hops. Springsteen spent time on the set of the film earlier this year and he professed to be very impressed with White’s work.
In a chat on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio in January, the 75-year-old rocker was asked if it felt weird to see White play him on screen. “A little bit at first, but you get over that pretty quick and Jeremy is such a terrific actor that you just fall right into it,” Springsteen said. “He’s got an interpretation of me that I think the fans will deeply recognize and he’s just done a great job, so I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve had a lot of fun being on the set when I can get there.”
In high praise from the singer known for his signature raspy, emotive voice, Springsteen said White was nailing it. “He sings well,” he said. “He sings very well.” Springsteen gave his full blessing for the adaptation of Warren Zanes’ book of the same name and in an interview earlier this year White said he’d studied hours and hours of video and worked with a vocal coach to nail Bruce’s vocal tone and speaking cadence.
The film also features Odessa Young (A Million Little Pieces) as Springsteen’s girlfriend, Gaby Hoffman (Transparent) as his mom, Adele, Marc Maron (Sticks) as record producer Chuck Plotkin and David Krumholtz (Oppenheimer) as a Columbia Records executive.
Check out the Deliver Me From Nowhere trailer below.
