Not every actor who steps into the well-worn jeans of a global rock icon has quite so much footage to review when prepping for a role. Luckily for The Bear star Jeremy Allen White, Bruce Springsteen has been playing three hour-plus shows for more than 50 years, so the tape library is voluminous.
Which explains why in a new interview with GQ, the actor said that a lot of his prep for the upcoming Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere has involved hours and hours of video study. “There’s just so much footage,” said White. “It’s really great to go down a YouTube rabbit hole and find him at all these different periods in his life and be able to listen to his speaking voice as well as his singing voice. That’s kind of been the deal, just listening to him a lot and watching him a lot. It’s been really fun preparing.”
The 33-year-old actor — now around the same age Springsteen was when he released his sixth album, 1982’s stripped-down Nebraska — said he’s also very lucky that are vocal coaches around now who can help people like him, or Timothée Chalamet (who will play Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown), hone in on the vocal quirks and crannies of the world’s most famous singers while prepping for films about their lives.
“I’ve got a really talented group of people helping me train vocally, musically, to get ready for this thing,” said White. “I’m also really lucky [that] Bruce is really supportive of the film, and so I’ve had some access to him and he’s just the greatest guy.” Plus, the Calvin Klein model who has set hearts aflutter with his ab-tastic Calvin Klein ads, said that even though we’ve not really heard his take on the New Jersey icon’s legendarily gruff vocal timbre, like Springsteen, he is a “jeans and T-shirt kind of guy. It was exciting to know going into this thing that we had at least that in common.”
Deliver Me From Nowhere will tell the story behind the making of Nebraska, a stark collection of character studies that followed up Springsteen’s sprawling 1980 double album, The River, which contained some of The Boss’ most beloved live staples, including the singles “Hungry Heart,” “Fade Away,” “Sherry Darling,” the title track and “Cadillac Ranch.” The movie will be directed by Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Antlers), with a release date and supporting cast not yet announced.
