The movie Bruce Springsteen almost made with Paul Schrader: “It’s not in his toolkit”
If you’ve managed to go your whole life without ever hearing a Bruce Springsteen song, then congratulations because that is seriously impressive. The New Jersey native has conquered the world with his brand of rift-driven, working-class rock music, selling millions of records and filling out stadiums with his insane live shows. Even now, as he navigates his winter years, Springsteen is showing no signs of slowing down or rocking any less than he’s ever done.
Unlike some of his fellow musicians, Springsteen hasn’t expressed much desire to move into acting. Outside of a brief cameo in High Fidelity, you won’t find him in many movies that aren’t documentaries, often about himself. A biopic of the singer’s life entitled Deliver Me from Nowhere is set for release in 2025 (with The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White playing the Boss), but other than that, Springsteen’s filmography is painfully small. However, he once came very close to collaborating with a legendary director.
In an interview with The Playlist, Paul Schrader talked about asking Springsteen for help when making his 2024 movie Oh, Canada. “I wanted something anti-anthemic,” he said of the film’s soundtrack. “And I know Springsteen. So at first, I mentioned it to Bruce. I said something about doing ‘O Canada.’ He said, ‘It sounds interesting; send me the script, and let me read it.’”
Oh, Canada stars Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi as old and young versions of the same character. The man, a documentary filmmaker, is terminally ill and agrees to have the final few months of his life filmed as part of his final project. The movie, which also stars Michael Imperioli, Kristine Froseth, and Uma Thurman, is adapted from a novel by the late author Russell Banks. Schrader previously turned Banks’ story Affliction into a movie in 1997.
Despite initially asking to work with the legendary artist, Schrader revealed that he was glad Springsteen didn’t help him out. “I said to myself, ‘Wait a second, you want an anti-anthem of the Canadian national anthem?’ Springsteen doesn’t do anti-anthems,” he realised. “He does ‘Happy Birthday’ as an anthem. It’s not in [Springsteen’s] toolkit to do an anti-anthem, and so I got back in touch with him [explained], and that’s why I went back to Matthew because he’s officially anti-anthemic.” The ‘Matthew’ in question is Matthew Houck, a singer-songwriter who eventually composed the film’s soundtrack under his stage name Phosphorescent.
The relationship between Schrader and Springsteen goes way back beyond this project. In the mid-1980s, the director wrote a script with the rocker in mind as his main character, but he turned it down. However, Springsteen was taken by the name of the screenplay – ‘Born in the USA’. He thought it would fit nicely with the anti-Vietnam war song he was writing at the time, and a piece of musical history was made. That script eventually became the movie Light of Day, with Michael J Fox in the role initially earmarked for Springsteen. The singer recorded the film’s theme song to make up for stealing its title.
With so little evidence to draw from, it’s hard to tell whether Springsteen would have been good in this role. What would have been fascinating is to hear his take on the Canadian national anthem, but fate clearly had other ideas.
