Jeremy Allen White looks set to swap his white t-shirt for a vest later this year, when he takes on the role of Bruce Springsteen for a new biopic, once shooting is completed on the fourth series of hit kitchen drama The Bear.
The film, provisionally titled Deliver Me from Nowhere, will be written and directed by Crazy Heart’s Scott Cooper and centres on the making of Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska. It is based on Warren Zanes’ non-fiction book of the same name.
His sixth studio album, Nebraska is a stripped-down collection of dark and melancholy songs about down on their luck blue collar characters. Heavily influenced by Terrence Malick’s film Badlands, as well as by Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States, Springsteen today considers the album his best work.
The taping of the album was remarkably rapid, with 10 of the songs laid down during one night in January 1982 in Springsteen’s New Jersey bedroom on four-track cassette. The same night, he also recorded five other songs, including the demo for Born in the USA, which was released two years later with the E Street Band.
This week it was announced that Springsteen, now 74, had become the first non-Brit inducted into the Ivors Academy.Springsteen had a cameo in the 2000 film High Fidelity and has been the subject of a number of documentaries, including The Promise and Letter to You. He gave his approval to 2019 film Blinded by the Light, based on the memoir by Sarfraz Manzoor about his love of Springsteen’s music, growing up in Luton.
One track on Nebraska, Highway Patrolman, provided inspiration for the 1991 film The Indian Runner, written and directed by Sean Penn. The movie follows the same plot outline as the song, about two brothers: one a criminal and the other a sheriff.
White won a Golden Globe, Emmy and SAG award for his portrayal of erratic chef Carmy Berzatto in The Bear. He was most recently seen on the big screen in wrestling drama The Iron Claw, alongside Zac Efron.
