Bruce Springsteen shares emotional reaction to 'touching' portrayal of his dad in biopic
This fall, Bruce Springsteen will be treated to a singular honor – watching his life story on the big screen.
"Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere," which arrives in theaters this October, will chronicle the rock icon's rise to fame, and early buzz for the film is coming from the subject himself.
In an interview with The Times that published Saturday, June 21, Springsteen revealed that watching "Adolescence" star Stephen Graham portray his late father, Douglas Springsteen, has been emotional.
It's "a little otherworldly, and also quite touching," the singer said of the experience. Springsteen's father, who is as much a foe in his musical canon as he is a muse, lies at the heart of some of the more difficult scenes in the movie.
"There’s some unusualness to it because the movie involves, in some ways, some of the most painful days of my life," Springsteen recently told Rolling Stone, revealing that while he visited the set when needed, he tried to stay away to give the actors a wide berth.
"If there was a scene coming up that was sometimes really deeply personal, I wanted the actors to feel completely free, and I didn't want to get in the way, and so I would just stay at home," he told the outlet of the moments meant to recreate his childhood.
Springsteen, whose working-class iconography has made him a prophet of the everyday American experience, opened up in the latter half of his career about how much of his image is based on his father. The two shared a fraught relationship, which will no doubt take center stage in the movie.
"The Bear" star Jeremy Allen White will portray the famous rocker and do his own singing – a new trend for biopics, bolstered by recent performances from Austin Butler in "Elvis" and Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown."
When does the Bruce Springsteen biopic come out?
"Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" will hit theaters Oct. 24, 2025.