Before the cameras rolled on “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” the Boss took one more ride down memory lane – literally.
Author and music historian Warren Zanes, who served as an executive producer on the newly released Bruce Springsteen biopic, revealed that the “Born to Run” singer led director Scott Cooper and a small crew on an expedition up and down the Jersey Shore before filming was officially underway.
“Before shooting started, we did a day of location scouting. Bruce brought out his Ford Bronco,” Zanes, 60, told The Post. “It was amazing.”
“So he was driving, Scott Cooper was riding shotgun, and I was in the back with Stefania [Cella], the set designer,” Zanes continued. “We drove to Freehold, we went to all of his houses, we went to Federici’s for lunch and had pizza.”
Of course, the road led straight to the small seaside city that helped shape Springsteen’s legendary music career more than other place in America.
Although the “Thunder Road” rocker, 76, grew up in Freehold, NJ, during the ’50s and ’60s, he got his start playing clubs and venues around Asbury Park. His other Jersey Shore haunts included Colts Neck, Red Bank and Long Branch.
One venue in particular was the iconic Stony Pony, which still stands today and helped launch the music careers of other NJ legends like Jon Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.
“We went to Asbury,” Zanes said. “You’re walking with Bruce Springsteen down the boardwalk toward [Convention Hall], and there’s no security.”
“It’s just Bruce and tourists there to see the landmarks associated with their favorite artist,” Zanes continued with a laugh, “who suddenly pick up on the fact that there he is!”
The new 20th Century Studios feature, directed by “Crazy Heart” filmmaker Cooper, dramatizes the making of one of Springsteen’s most defining albums, 1982’s “Nebraska.”
Starring Jeremy Allen White, 34, as Springsteen and Jeremy Strong, 46, as Springsteen’s longtime manager, Jon Landau, the film also provides a deep dive into the “River” singer’s mental state while on the cusp of becoming a global superstar.
Zanes’s 2023 book, “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska,” served as the movie’s source material. He was close by Cooper’s side as the entire project developed, including when the director first met the Boss and the Boss’ wife of 34 years, Patti Scialfa.
“The first time I brought Scott Cooper to meet Bruce and Jon [Landau] was down on the Jersey Shore,” Zanes said. “Bruce and Patti rented a house right there on the beach.”
“We all sat in the sun and had lunch, and it was a three-hour meeting,” he continued. “The first 90 minutes, it was just talking about movies. And then, the last 90 minutes were about this movie.”
By the time the three-hour meeting finished, the “Greetings from Asbury Park” artist was fully on board. Springsteen previously discussed why he finally agreed to a biopic during the 2025 Telluride Film Festival in August.
“It was an amazing session,” the “Revolutions in Sound” author shared. “At the end of it, Bruce said, ‘I wanna do this.’”
From there, the good vibes never stopped.
“There was plenty of fun,” Zanes continued. “I remember lunches just sitting, a group of us at a table, everybody eating lunch, and Jon and Bruce just start telling stories, and it’s like nothing else.”
“Everyone is pinching themselves, because it’s both hysterical – these are two very funny people – and it’s also a backstage view like no other,” the New York Times bestseller added. “There was a lot of that. Like, you didn’t want to miss lunch.”
It was that bond between Springsteen and Landau, 78, that Zanes said translated perfectly onto the big screen through White and Strong’s performances.
“The thing that surprised me, I’d been able to see Bruce and Jon interact,” the music biographer explained. “There’s a subtlety to that relationship. You know how old it is, and you know what those guys have been through together.”
“Then you see Jon make Bruce laugh,” he continued, “and it tells you so much about those two men.”
Zanes said he saw that same chemistry come alive between the actors the first time they filmed together.
“Watching Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong on camera for the first time – it was before they even called action,” he recalled. “Jeremy Strong started doing this stuff that was off-script, but in character, that was making Jeremy Allen White laugh. And I was like: ‘That’s Bruce and Jon.’”
The executive producer added that the experience deepened his own understanding of Springsteen, even after meeting and interviewing the “Born in the USA” singer for his 2023 book and to talk the new biopic.
“I told Jeremy Allen White when I saw him just the other week, I said that watching this, and watching him, I felt like I understood Bruce better,” Zanes shared.
But when shooting on “Deliver Me From Nowhere” kicked off in earnest, and when it came time to really get to work, Springsteen took the filmmaking process as seriously as ever and gave Cooper, 55, the space he needed to lead.
“You know, Bruce is a guy, if you think about the number of studios he’s been in trying to get a record made, and struggling to do so, with a lot of people around him,” Zanes explained. “He knows what it’s like to have one’s creative space respected.”
“He knows what it’s like to have people stepping into one’s creative space at a time when you don’t need that,” Zanes added. “He was so respectful of Scott Cooper’s space.”
However, that doesn’t mean the “Atlantic City” crooner wasn’t involved in the process or didn’t speak up when he had a note or idea.
“He sat close to Scott, but he let Scott really be the one directing, in the truest sense of the word,” Zanes recalled. “So if there was some moment of direct intervention with Bruce, it was more like you’d see Bruce and Scott talking a little ways away over there. It was done with a lot of grace.”
The Boss lent his insight into the story itself as well, sharing details that had never even made it into Zanes’ original book.
“He also added some things,” Zanes revealed. “Although the character of Faye [Romano] is kind of a composite, he said there was somebody he was seeing at that time, and he started talking about her.”
Odessa Young portrays Faye in “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” Springsteen’s love interest and a combination of several girls the “State Trooper” singer knew in real life when he was writing and recording “Nebraska.”
In the film, White’s Springsteen takes Faye on a date to Asbury Park that features many of the landmarks the “Johnny 99” rocker brought Cooper, Zanes and Cella during their Jersey Shore scouting expedition.
While “Deliver Me From Nowhere” centers on the creation of “Nebraska” and the musician’s struggle with both depression and superstardom at the time, it also focuses on Springsteen’s troubled relationship with his father.
“He also told us about the trip when his mom asked him to go find his father, who was in downtown LA and had been put in the police station,” Zanes shared. “Even Jon didn’t know that story.”
“Also, the scene of his father saying, ‘Sit on my lap.’ That is such a key moment in the movie,” Zanes added. “These are things that weren’t in the book, and they weren’t in the first script.”
As for the film itself, the executive producer thinks Springsteen would have been surprised if told back in the early 80s that “Nebraska” and its creation would be the story Hollywood chose to adapt into a movie.
“Bruce Springsteen didn’t make this record thinking that 40-plus years later, 20th Century Studios would be making a feature about the making of it,” Zanes said.
“If you could time-travel and go to Bruce at 32 and say, ‘Hey, that record you just made? There’s gonna be a major feature film about you and what you did in that bedroom,’ he’d look at you and say: ‘You’re a crazy motherf–ker!’”
“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” is now in theaters.
