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Jeremy Allen White discusses vocal training to play Bruce Springsteen in new biopic

Tue 27 August 2024 16:21, UK

As The Bear star Jeremy Allen White readies himself to play Bruce Springsteen in the upcoming biopic, Deliver Me from Nowhere, the actor has lifted the lid on his preparation process.

White, who rose to fame in the hit series Shameless before appearing in the Emmy-winning series The Bear on Hulu, was announced to play Springsteen earlier this year. The forthcoming movie is based on the book by Warren Zanes, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, released in 2023.

As the title of the book suggests, it details the story behind Springsteen’s seminal album, Nebraska, released in 1982. The record finds Springsteen weaving a narrative across ten tracks, and showcasing himself as a masterful storyteller while deviating away from his stadium-rock roots.

White has been absorbing himself within the world of Springsteen ahead of filming starting on the project. As the new face of Calvin Klein Jeans, White said of the similarities in their dress sense during a new interview with GQ, “Bruce Springsteen is—I mean this in the very best way—he’s a guy. He’s 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.”

In recent years, there have been a slew of biopics on musical stars with Austin Butler portraying Elvis Presley, and Timothée Chalamet is also set to play Bob Dylan. Therefore, White has tapped into the same resources used as his contemporaries, explaining, “I’m really lucky that there’s sort of a team of folks now in place to help young actors portray rock stars.”

He elaborated, “I’ve got a really talented group of people helping me train vocally, musically, to get ready for this thing. 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.”

Due to the amount of material readily available online, White noted how he’s found it “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.”

Rather than it being a chore to study Springsteen in immense detail, White said it has “been really fun preparing” which bodes well for the upcoming production. Filming is expected to begin on Deliver Me from Nowhere later this year, and it’s yet to receive a release date.

Bruce Springsteen’s thoughts on Nebraska

During an interview with CBS Sunday Morning in 2023, Springsteen named it as the album that represents him best as an artist.

Explaining his decision, he remarked, “I just hit some sort of personal wall that I didn’t even know was there. It was my first real major depression. I think in your 20s a lot of things work for you. Your 30s is where you start to become an adult.”

‘The Boss’ also noted how he used his mental health struggles as a driving force for artistic purposes, stating, “This is all inside of me. You can either take it and transform it into something positive or it can destroy you.”