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&34;Deliver Me From Nowhere&34; director Scott Cooper wants audiences to see the Boss as a man, not a myth: &34;It's about honoring this particular moment.&34;

"Deliver Me From Nowhere" director Scott Cooper wants audiences to see the Boss as a man, not a myth: "It's about honoring this particular moment."

Why Bruce Springsteen's biopic focuses on the making of Nebraska album instead of Born in the U.S.A.

"Deliver Me From Nowhere" director Scott Cooper wants audiences to see the Boss as a man, not a myth: "It's about honoring this particular moment."

By Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at ** with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, *Ms. Magazine*, *The Hollywood Reporter*, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, *It Happened One Fight*, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

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September 11, 2025 12:00 p.m. ET

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Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 'Deliver Me From Nowhere'. Credit:

Macall Polay/20th Century Studios

- After years of saying no, Bruce Springsteen has finally authorized a biopic about his life, *Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere*.

- The film, written and directed by Scott Cooper, focuses on the rock star during the period when he was writing solo album *Nebraska.*

- Cooper says he was interested in a more stripped-down and specific look at Springsteen, as opposed to a life-spanning biopic.

The name Bruce Springsteen evokes a very specific image: a sweat-soaked rocker, jumping up and down on stage, leading a raucous crowd in a stadium anthem.

That man is the Boss. But in *Springsteen:* *Deliver Me From Nowhere, *which hits theaters Oct. 24, the Boss is nowhere to be found. Instead, the story follows Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White), a musician and a man grappling with depression, generational trauma, and what he wants to say through his music.

That's entirely by design, beginning with the source material of Warren Zanes' book *Deliver Me From Nowhere *and continuing into writer-director Scott Cooper's vision for the film, which was all about the "intimacy" he found there.

"It wasn't about Bruce Springsteen, the icon and stadium-filling rock star," Cooper tells *.* "It was about Bruce alone in a rented house, trying to understand himself and his unresolved trauma through song."

The book, Cooper says, "captured the tension between the myth of Bruce Springsteen and the man," he continues. "That's where the film lived for me. Not in the spectacle, but in the silence, the hesitation, the uncertainty. I saw a cinematic portrait of an artist who was willing to strip himself bare."

Jeremy Allen White in 'Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere'.

Macall Polay/20th Century Studios

It also appealed to Springsteen himself, who has spent years denying requests from Hollywood to make a movie about his life. "Bruce has famously said no to countless overtures to make his story," Cooper notes. "But he saw that I was committed to avoiding hagiography altogether. Bruce once said to me, 'The truth about yourself is rarely pretty, and I want you to tell the truth about my struggles.'"

That was Cooper's intention from the start. *Deliver Me From Nowhere, *which stars *The Bear* Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen, follows a brief period in the artist's life in the early 1980s. During this time, Springsteen rents a house in New Jersey where he writes and records the spare tracks that become *Nebraska. *

"This isn't a typical musical biopic," Cooper says. "I saw something much quieter and more interior than most music films — because it's about a very specific and deeply personal time in Bruce's life. He's just coming off the enormous success of *The River. *He's writing the incredibly stark *Nebraska* while beginning to shape *Born in the U.S.A.*, while he's facing some of the trauma and the ghosts that he had carried with him since childhood."

Cooper's goal was "never about telling the whole story of Bruce Springsteen," he continues. "It's about honoring this particular moment — the stillness, the searching, and the emotional honesty."

That spoke to Springsteen as well, leading him and longtime manager Jon Landau — who is also a core character here, as portrayed by Jeremy Strong (*Succession*) — to throw their full support behind the film.

"Jon would weigh in on everything from production design to costuming, ensuring that every choice that I made felt true to the world," says Cooper. "I wasn't making a documentary, but I wanted this to feel as authentic as possible."

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Springsteen and Landau even lent the production many of their personal effects. Many articles of clothing that White wears in the movie are from Springsteen's archive. The guitar he's playing? "Bruce gave to Jeremy. Having Bruce there every day as a resource was essential to telling the story."

Equally as essential was the presence of Landau, given how much of an impact the manager and record producer has had on Springsteen's life and career. "Bruce and Jon's [bond] is the central relationship of the story. It's a love story," Cooper explains. "Jon Landau is far more than just a manager. He is a confidant. He's a father figure. He's part therapist. He's someone who is an artistic collaborator, and he means as much to Bruce as almost anyone in Bruce's life. He's someone who has helped Bruce balance the creative brilliance and the commercial risk that he takes when he makes a record like *Nebraska*. We all would be better if we had a Jon Landau in our life."

As Cooper notes (and the film makes abundantly clear), *Nebraska *was an enormous risk for an artist like Springsteen. It was not and has never been a commercial hit, but it is one of Springsteen's most critically lauded albums. Notably, Springsteen was beginning to craft *Born in the U.S.A., *his most successful album, at the same time, writing many of those songs concurrently. But just like Springsteen, Cooper is more interested in the riskier creative endeavor.

"One can very easily make a film about *Born in the U.S.A.*" Cooper muses. "They are two sides of the same coin. *Nebraska* is Bruce alone with a four-track recorder whispering his despair into a microphone. *Born in the U.S.A.* is Bruce talking about some of the same themes, but he sets them in stadium-sized anthems. One is Bruce's private diary, and the other is a larger, public declaration. You can't have one without the other."

So, why choose *Nebraska *in that coin toss? For starters, Cooper sees it as an inherently cinematic record, underlined by Springsteen's obsession with Terrence Malick's *Badlands *and *The Night of the Hunter.*

"Bruce has always written like a filmmaker," the director says. "His songs are filled with landscapes, characters, and frames that feel right out of American cinema. In *Nebraska*, that cinematic quality becomes more stark. It's a series of black-and-white images stripped of spectacle. Every song plays like a short film."

Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong in 'Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere'.

Macall Polay/20th Century Studios

So like Springsteen's approach to *Nebraska — "*minimalist, stark, no gloss, the camera never flinches, it records the truth," Cooper continues — he approached his film the same way: "unadorned... intimate shadows, silences, and raw textures. I wanted the audience to feel like they're sitting in that room with Bruce watching an artist wrestle with himself in real time."

However, there's another far more personal reason that this particular story captured Cooper's imagination. *Nebraska* was his introduction to Springsteen's music; his father — who died the day before Cooper began production on the film — gifted him the record.

"I grew up in a house that listened to a lot of bluegrass, jazz, and old school country music — Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash," Cooper recalls. "*Nebraska* was my entry into Bruce Springsteen. I was immediately struck by its minimalist quality, its power. It seemed to come from some of the same world that I was accustomed to. You could tell that these were songs that meant something to somebody."

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Cooper's connection to his father and suffering such a huge loss so close to filming helped guide him. "My dad's spirit carried me through the film," he reflects. "To be invited into Bruce's space, to walk alongside him, to bring this part of his story to the screen, it's hard to put into words exactly what that meant. I just tried to listen closely and stay out of the way."

*Deliver Me From Nowhere* is in theaters Oct. 24.**

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