Adolescence star Stephen Graham has revealed he was reduced to tears by a ‘beautiful’ text from music icon Bruce Springsteen.
The 51-year-old British actor, who is currently dominating water-cooler conversation around the world thanks to the powerful Netflix drama, has been cast as Springsteen’s late father Douglas ‘Dutch’ Springsteen in the Born in the USA hitmaker’s upcoming biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere.
Springsteen Senior died in 1998, and his rock star son sent a message to thank Graham for his stunning performance, after watching him in action on set one day during the shoot.
‘[Bruce] sent me the most gorgeous text I’ve ever had in my life because I play his dad when his dad’s like, I play him in the eighties,’ the Line of Duty actor explained of his small but crucial role in the much-anticipated movie, opposite Jeremy Allen White.
Recalling the day, he told the Soundtracking podcast with Edith Bowman: ‘So I was dead serious and we did this scene and it was a really beautiful little scene. It was lovely, but I had to get the flight.
‘So, I had to rip the prosthetics off and I’m in the car and I’m racing to get to the airport and I got this text. And the text was so beautiful and just said, “Better than any award that I could ever receive in my life.”’
Graham went on to praise Springsteen as a ‘working-class hero’ and ‘an icon to thousands of millions’.
‘And his text just said, “Thank you so much. You know, my father passed away a while ago and I felt like I saw him today and thank you for giving me that memory.”’
Unsurprisingly, the Bafta-nominated star was overcome at receiving such a personal and touching confession from Springsteen.
‘I was crying reading the text, do you know what I mean? It was beautiful. You couldn’t ask for anything more, you know, to share that with someone was gorgeous. He’s a lovely man.’
Graham also had impressive things to say about his ‘unbelievable’ co-star White, maintaining that ‘working with him is like working with the presence of Al Pacino and De Niro back in the day’ – and Graham has some insight, having acted opposite both in 2019’s The Irishman for director Martin Scorsese.
In fact, he previously became tearful on the radio recently when recounting how he told his father he would be acting with De Niro after growing up with a poster of Taxi Driver on his wall.
He marvelled: ‘Can you imagine what that phone call was like?’
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The Boiling Point star also revealed to Bowman how he got into character as Dutch by listening to Springsteen read the audiobook version of his memoir, Born to Run.
The actor shared of a conversation about the role he had on set with Springsteen: ‘I said to him, “Are you aware that when you speak about your dad in your book, you kind of change the tone of your voice and you take on this persona?”. And he was like, “Really?”
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‘I said, “Yeah,” and I said, “And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to just basically mimic that sound and that persona that you do and inhabit it and try and create my own character.”’
He also disclosed that Deliver Me From Nowhere director Scott Cooper, who also wrote the screenplay, penned the part of Dutch with Graham in mind.
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