LAS VEGAS – Bob Dylan just got the biopic treatment. Bruce Springsteen, you’re up.
Jeremy Allen White came to CinemaCon on Thursday to debut the first look at director Scott Cooper’s “Deliver Me From Nowhere” (in theaters later this year), in which he plays The Boss at a very pivotal moment of his career leading up to his 1982 album “Nebraska.”
“Incredible, challenging, dream come true,” White said of becoming Springsteen. “I feel really lucky. We all had Bruce’s blessing.”
The footage that played for theater owners showed Springsteen coming to grips with fame – he’s called a “rock star” when buying a new car and seems unsure about the moniker. The film finds him reconciling his success with traumatic experiences from his childhood and with his father (Stephen Graham), and dealing with his mental health.
While “trying to find something real,” Bruce – with tousled hair and guitar – records new songs on a four-track recorder in his bedroom. Meanwhile, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), Springsteen’s longtime friend and manager, is trying to keep the record label off his back. “He’s a repairman,” Landau tells them. “He’s working on repairing the hole in himself. When he’s done with that, he’ll repair the world.”
“Jon was deeply invested in Bruce as an artist but he was also invested in his friend’s happiness and well-being,” Strong said. “He was the Lewis to Bruce’s Clark, and the journey they’ve been on together is beautiful and unprecedented in the history of music.”
Springsteen has said he liked what he saw when visiting the set and watching White play him. “Jeremy is such a terrific actor” and he can “sing well,” Springsteen said in December on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio. White has “an interpretation of me that I think the fans will deeply recognize, and he’s just done a great job.”
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