Stephen Graham compares Jeremy Allen White to Robert De Niro and Al Pacino: “He’s unbelievable”

Posted On March 17, 2025March 17, 2025

Stephen Graham has compared Jeremy Allen White, playing Bruce Springsteen in the upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere in which the pair both star, as the new version of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

The film, which sees White portray a younger version of Springsteen and Graham play his father Douglas Freehold, details the story behind the musician’s seminal album, Nebraska, released in 1982. It is based on the book by Warren Zanes, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, released in 2023. It also features Jeremy Strong.

Now, in a new interview, the Liverpudlian actor heaped praise on the Shameless star in his new role as The Boss, saying to GQ: “He’s absolutely fucking unbelievable,” before adding, “He’s brilliant. He’s unbelievable. To me he’s the new Pacino and De Niro.”

This glowing reference to the classic Hollywood heavyweights for White has been paired with a top vote of confidence from the man himself, as Springsteen said he was a “terrific actor”.

For Graham’s part, it comes at a moment of particular rapture himself, as his new Netflix drama Adolescence is taking the streamer by storm with its powerfully harrowing one-take performances.

The show sees Graham deliver a stellar turn as a father whose 13-year-old son is accused of the murder of a female schoolmate, delving into the issues of toxic masculinity, social media, and incel culture in its midst.

As well as starring in Adolescence, Graham co-wrote the limited series alongside Jack Thorne. Speaking of the pair’s process, he told GQ: “I had an idea for all of these four episodes, and how they may look, but basically, me and Jack became Frankenstein. I brought the body parts to Jack, then he created a spirit, and together we worked on the soul.”

On the drama’s tough subject matter, the actor added: “For me, there was a spate up and down the country of young boys who had stabbed young girls. It’s a different kind of thing, in many ways, because with the gang-on-gang violence of young boys stabbing young boys in London, Birmingham and Manchester, it’s horrific, and there’s something in our society that we need to address and look at.”

“But for me,” he continued, “the other thing was, ‘What’s really going on here now, when young boys are stabbing young girls to death?’”

Adolescence is now streaming on Netflix, while Deliver Me From Nowhere will be released later in 2025. No specific date has been announced as yet for the project.

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