Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere director Scott Cooper revealed the advice Bruce Springsteen gave him that had a huge impact on the rock singer’s biopic. Springsteen is one of the biggest rock stars in the world who has recorded hit songs like “Born to Run,” “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Thunder Road.”

Deliver Me From Nowhere will focus on his 1982 album Nebraska, which was released two years before his biggest-selling album, Born in the U.S.A.

In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley, Cooper, who has directed such films as Crazy Heart, Black Mass and Antlers, revealed the advice that Springsteen gave him before beginning production on Deliver Me From Nowhere that “really opened everything up.”

When writing the screenplay for the film, Cooper spent time with Springsteen, including visiting him on his tour in Europe and taking part in FaceTime calls.

During one of their discussions, the singer told Cooper, “The truth about yourself isn’t always pretty. Make a Scott Cooper film because your movies never left the audience off the hook. They don’t sand off the edges and they tell the truth.”

In that instant, Cooper realized that he couldn’t create a biopic that put Springsteen up on a pedestal or showed an idealized version of his life. Deliver Me From Nowhere had to tell the truth about Springsteen the man, not merely the rock star that fans adore, especially since the “Born to Run” singer is a “truthful and authentic artist.”

During pre-production on the film, Cooper had the opportunity to learn about Springsteen in a way that he wouldn’t have otherwise experienced, including discovering the singer’s “lowest lows” and “highest highs.” The director acknowledged that very few people can do that in the way he did since he was up close and personal with Springsteen.

An autobiography or biography about a public figure like Springsteen, including the Warren Zanes book that the film is based on, doesn’t always reveal every complex layer that needs to be shown on screen from Jeremy Allen White, the actor playing him in Deliver Me From Nowhere. Check out Cooper’s comments below:

Probably during the writing phase because I came to New Jersey, spent some time with Bruce, I saw him on tour in Europe, spent some time with him there while I’m writing the screenplay. We would do a lot of FaceTiming while he was on tour in Europe and I was still here. And then once I started casting and recreating his life in great, great detail where I spent an inordinate amount of time with Bruce to better understand exactly what he was experiencing, not only in his lowest lows, but in his highest highs right here on this stage behind me. And you can only really understand that when you spend a great deal of time to someone, you can’t really understand it as much from his autobiography or the biographies that were written. Or even Warren Zanes’s is incredibly intimate and warm look at this chapter in his life. So Bruce said one thing to me that stayed with me and really opened everything up. He said, ‘The truth about yourself isn’t always pretty. Make a Scott Cooper film because your movie’s never left the audience off the hook. They don’t sand off the edges and they tell the truth.’ And at that point, I knew that this was not going to be hagiography. I don’t even know how to make that. It was about telling the truth of a man who was our most truthful and authentic artist.

Scott Cooper Explains The “Daunting Challenge” Of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

20th Century Studios / Courtesy Everett Collection

Since Cooper set out to show Springsteen’s truth and vulnerability in Deliver Me From Nowhere, that presented a “daunting challenge,” according to the director. The Nebraska era was a very “specific and intimate time” in Springsteen’s life, removed from a lot of the success that he would later achieve with albums like Born in the U.S.A.

Cooper said that some public figures might not want filmmakers to depict their vulnerabilities because it might be considered a weakness. However, Springsteen wasn’t like that at all for the highly-anticipated Deliver Me From Nowhere. Instead, he was “incredibly artistically courageous” to allow Cooper to explore a “painful” and “vulnerable” part of his life.

Failure is a major theme on Nebraska, a heavy subject for Cooper to lean into in Deliver Me From Nowhere, but he knew he needed to ensure the truth was told instead of catering to “preconceived notions” about Springsteen:

Well, a daunting challenge to make a film about Bruce Springsteen because he means so much to so many people and they bring so many preconceived notions about Bruce. There’s folks who love Bruce from Darkness or Greetings or Born to Run or Born in the USA, but not a lot of people, if you aren’t an ardent fan, are aware of Nebraska, which is a very specific and intimate time in his life that I focus on. And it’s really all about vulnerability because so often people of a certain stature feel like if you show vulnerability, you’re showing weakness. And it’s incredibly artistically courageous of Bruce to allow me to explore his most painful and most vulnerable chapter in his life. A time when he’s just coming off of the River Tour, 1981, end of ’81, in which he’s on the ascent to becoming a major superstar and instead of continuing to chase the roar of arenas and number one hits, he chooses silence and four track recorder and a rented house in New Jersey and the courage to look inward and that choice gave us Nebraska.

Casual fans of the singer might not be as familiar with Nebraska, so Deliver Me From Nowhere could be an eye-opening experience for a lot of moviegoers.

Some biopics aren’t produced until after a singer has died, like with Johnny Cash’s Walk the Line. Aretha Franklin famously chose Jennifer Hudson to play her in a biopic about her life, though the Queen of Soul died before production got underway.

By contrast, Springsteen is still alive, and Cooper was able to pull back the layers and create a story that not only pays tribute to him but also refuses to portray him as anything other than human.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will be released in theaters on October 24, 2025.