2025-10-16 Television Centre, Studio 1, London, England

Dan French

Bruce was welcomed by plenty of ‘Brooocing’ from the audience, naturally. He joined Jeremy Allen White, Jennifer Lawrence and Tessa Thompson. He wore a waistcoat over a grey shirt with tie, and barely had enough room to sit on his end of the sofa. (He was maybe thinking everyone else on it was young enough to be his kids!) He had two glasses to drink from, but mostly drank water. Bruce joked that he was 10 years old when he recorded ‘Born To Run’, after Graham noted it was 50 years ago. He confirmed he sang it at every show, adding ‘that’s what they pay me for’. Jennifer Lawrence explained that while making one film she frequently listened to one of Bruce’s songs to get in the right mood. Bruce joked that ‘Nebraska’ wouldn’t have helped, and guessed at ‘Waitin’ On A Sunny Day’, before it was revealed to be ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town’. Tessa Thompson mentioned that her father went on tour with Bruce – Marc Anthony Thompson from The Seeger Sessions Band. She recalled coming to one of the 2006 shows, hoisted onto someone’s shoulders to see. Jeremy Allen White described how Bruce was involved, how they met at Wembley 2024, and including his visits to the set. Bruce admitted he felt guilty about his ‘stupid ass’ being present, putting pressure on Jeremy. ‘That’s awful - have you apologised?’ quipped Jennifer. He had been invited by the director Scott, but suggested he was in two minds about being there. Jeremy said that as Bruce was there so often it became normal for him to have him around. Bruce avoided giving notes mostly, just occasionally advising Scott on the tone of things at times. Asked how it was to see himself portrayed, Bruce initially avoided any reference to the dark part of the story, just repeating his comment that he couldn’t believe (watching Jeremy) that he was ever ‘that young and that good looking’. Graham asked Bruce if he had to approve the casting of Jeremy, and he said not, but that when Scott told him Jeremy was the choice, he had been the only actor Bruce thought about for the role, as a fan of ‘The Bear’ and how ‘psychological’ an actor he was. He then briefly mentioned ‘personal struggles’ being a focus of the biopic, adding that of course he hadn’t been sharing at the time how he was ‘losing my mind’. Bruce described filming the performance of the ‘Nebraska’ album as part of the upcoming box set as it hadn’t been done like that before. Jeremy explained how he wasn’t a trained singer or guitarist until training for this film. Scott told him that if the singing didn’t feel right, they could find a way round it with blending vocals. Bruce said that Jeremy wasn’t just imitating him, but capturing his ‘internal life’ authentically. He joked that he was going to be stealing some of Jeremy’s moves. Bruce told a story about being given a glass of beer by a fan during a show in Germany which was both larger and much stronger than he was expecting, and having drunk it all quickly he felt ‘stoned’, and his reaction was that he felt ‘I sound so fucking good right now!’ He explained how The Castiles were named after a shampoo brand, and the name suited the times when band names were often prefixed with ‘The …’ Seeing the band’s promo photo, Graham added that they were influenced by The Beatles, and Bruce described the effort it took to get his naturally curly hair straight like that. Asked if he might now feel self-conscious on stage having seen the film, Bruce admitted that Jeremy picked up many of his mannerisms, which he hadn’t been aware of before, but smiled: ‘I think I’ll be all right’. Bruce explained how ‘Nebraska’ was made accidentally after the success of ‘The River’ and against expectations, but how despite recording ‘Born In The USA’ at the same time, he felt the quieter album was the right choice at the time; and of course ‘Born In The USA’ succeeded later anyway. After Jeremy described dealing with the attention of young female fans, Bruce joked that he didn’t have that problem as his fans are all aged about 70 now! Jennifer and Tessa compared experiences of struggling with costumes not designed to let them pee, and having to use a funnel… Graham asked Bruce if he had used a funnel, and Jennifer said he was ‘born with a funnel’! Bruce told the story about getting the title of ‘Born In The USA’ from Paul Schrader’s script, and giving him ‘Light Of Day’ instead. He added he found it hard to believe that it was proposed to cast him opposite Robert De Niro, saying they’d never talked about it. Florence joined the sofa after two live band performances of her new song ‘Everybody Scream’, and joked how she only ever met Bruce on the show, having done so previously. She admitted that she was a fan of his music and had performed ‘I’m Goin’ Down’ as a duet long ago but been too shy to tell him last time. Bruce said he was flattered at what he called an unusual choice for a duet being covered. Somebody said that next time they met on the show, Bruce and Florence should do the song together (to applause from the audience). There was a fun moment when Florence and Tessa hugged on the sofa, so not to be outdone, Jennifer then hugged Tessa, and Jeremy hugged Bruce! The first guest in the Big Red Chair was Carmen, obviously a Bruce fan, who told a story about seeing someone wearing a ‘Bruce Crew’ t-shirt and assuming they were also a Springsteen fan, but then learned from the guy that his name was Bruce and his staff were his ‘crew’ – she got ejected from the chair. Bruce got ‘Broooced’ again as he left, of course. Graham said he thought Jennifer and Tessa hadn’t experienced that reaction before and were probably a bit confused about it.