Hollywood actor Jeremy Allen White recently revealed his sheer terror upon learning that music legend Bruce Springsteen would frequently visit the set of his biopic, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.”
Pressure of Portraying a Legend
At 34, White takes on the iconic role of Springsteen in this biographical musical drama. The added pressure of meeting fans’ expectations of The Boss was magnified when White discovered that the Born to Run hitmaker, who is also a producer on the film, would be critiquing his performance up close, as reported by ‘Female First UK’.
During The Hollywood Reporter’s Actors Roundtable, Dwayne Johnson, known for his role in “The Smashing Machine,” asked, “Jeremy, did you feel, because I felt this on ‘The Smashing Machine’, added pressure inhabiting the skin of one of the greatest ever?”
White responded, “One of the greatest ever, and also, people have their own understanding of Bruce Springsteen, and I felt like, ‘I don’t want to interrupt that understanding’. It’s so pure and powerful, and he’s adored, and I just didn’t want to mess with it. In the beginning, I spent a lot of time with Bruce; he was very gracious and generous with his time. But then he was on set almost every day, which was something that we did not speak about prior. And I was just like, ‘Oh, nooo’.” Fellow actors Jacob Elordi and Mark Hamill expressed their sympathy, with Elordi stating, “I saw pictures of that and felt for you.” Hamill added, “I get vicarious flop sweat just thinking about it.”
A Leap of Faith
According to ‘Female First UK’, despite being the first choice of both Springsteen and director Scott Cooper, White admitted he initially doubted his suitability for the role. However, he ultimately chose to take a “leap of faith.”
He explained, “There are some actors who feel like they can do anything, that they can show up and figure it out. I wanted to make sure I was the right guy. The odds seemed stacked against me. I mean, Scott wanted me to do all the singing in it, but I’d never sung before.”
He continued, “He wanted me to play the guitar for it, but I’d never played the guitar before. And we had just six months to prepare. I was like, ‘I don’t know if that can be done.’ So I took a couple of days. But then it was that thing of, ‘Am I going to shy away from this challenge or am I going to jump and see what happens?’ It was a leap of faith.”