Stephen Graham has revealed that he was overcome with emotion after portraying Bruce Spingsteen’s father in a small but vital role in the upcoming biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere, and Bruce’s reaction to Stephen’s portrayal had the Adolescence star in tears.
Chatting on Soundtracking with Edith Bowman alongside the Netflix show’s director, Philip Barantini, Stephen explained: “There wasn’t loads to take from the script, but I listened to Bruce’s audio book. He narrates it and then when I got onto set and I met him for the first time, it was wonderful.
“He loved This is England as well which I was blown away by. We had a lovely little conversation. I said to him, ‘Are you aware that when you speak about your dad and your book, you change the tone of your voice and you take on this persona?’ And he was like, ‘Really?’
“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 to create my own character.’
“He sent me one of the most gorgeous texts I’ve ever had in my life because I played his dad in the eighties… We did this scene and it was a really beautiful little scene. It was lovely, but I had to get the flight… I’m in the car and I’m racing to get to the airport and I got this text, and his text was so beautiful and just said, ‘Better than any award that I could ever receive in my life.’
He’s an icon. He’s a hero. Do you know what I mean? He’s a working-class hero. He’s an icon to thousands of millions. And his text just said, ‘Thank you so much. My father passed away a while ago and I felt like I saw him today and thank you for giving me that memory.’
“I was crying reading the text, do you know what I mean? Oh mate. It was beautiful. You couldn’t ask for anything more, to share that with someone was gorgeous. He’s a lovely man.”
The upcoming biopic stars Jeremy Allen White as Bruce, while Succession star Jeremy Strong plays his manager and record producer, Jon Landau. The film follows Bruce’s journey to make his sixth album Nebraska on cassette from a bedroom.
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