Jeremy Allen White, Bruce Springsteen Hug It Out on Deliver Me From Nowhere Set

When it comes to the embodiment of cool, American style, Bruce Springsteen likely comes to many a mind. The Boss, as he is so known, has been captivating crowds the world over with his anthemic rock songs, intimate lyrics, and self-possessed jeans-and-t-shirt style. And no one, perhaps, represents that cool more right now than The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White, who is starring as the singer in Scott Cooper’s biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere.

So it was a thrill to see the duo embrace on the Bayonne, New Jersey set this past weekend, when Springsteen made a surprise stop to check out how White and the rest of the cast and crew are doing with bringing his life story to the big screen (via British GQ).

First Look at Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere

White’s initial casting may have had some Springsteen fans scratching their heads. To see him in full Bruce drag, however, helps you to understand why the Shameless actor was cast in the role. The man looks very cool, plain and simple — and, to editorialize for a bit, he really is embodying the sort of New Jersey man who’d hang around in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Decked out in a classic leather biker jacket (complete with all the sort of wear and tear you’d expect from a jacket worn by The Boss), dark wash denim, and black leather boots, White really looks the part of a scrappy kid from New Jersey to a tee (a well worn-in white tee, if you will) just trying to make a name for himself in the music industry. Deliver Me From Nowhere is set to tell the story of the time Springsteen spent in the early ’80s recording the album Nebraska. It is based on the Warren Zanes book, Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making Of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (1982).

Though far from his most iconic and well-known record, Nebraska was a departure for Springsteen in many ways. He recorded the songs largely on his own with a 4-track recorder, intending to re-record them later with his E-Street Band. In the end, however, he decided to release the album as-is, demo recordings and all. The vibe of the songs is largely more solemn, featuring tracks about the sort of down-on-their-luck, blue-collar struggles to which many Americans can relate. It’s an intimate, lo-fi sort of rock album, and the recording of it was a singular moment in Springsteen’s career.

It’s also the perfect sort of story for a director like Crazy Heart and The Pale Blue Eye’s Scott Cooper, who has — in previous interviews — explained how central America and American issues are to the stories he tells. In an interview with Why Now, he explained it by saying that, “America is an incredibly complex place, never more so than today. It’s a country that was born out of a fight for independence, but that independence has come at a great cost.”

He went on to add: “It’s a nation that’s soaked in tragedy and blood and for an artist who isn’t afraid to confront that, as I am not afraid to confront that, it’s what makes for compelling drama and tragedy. It also allows me to understand the place from which I came. And what is it about the forces, cultural, socio-economic, that really made me become the person that I become, my family, who they became and how do these forces in America affect us all on a daily basis? So I try to mine that social commentary in a way hopefully, subtly.”