How Bruce Springsteen brought Adolescence’s Stephen Graham to tears
26 March 2025, 16:07
The popular actor is playing Bruce’s father in the upcoming biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere.
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Bruce Springsteen brought Adolescence star Stephen Graham to tears with just a text message, the actor has revealed.
Stephen will play the ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ singer’s father Douglas Springsteen in the upcoming biopic about Bruce’s life.
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Deliver Me from Nowhere will star The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen, and is set for release later this year.
In a recent appearance on Edith Bowman’s Soundtracking podcast, Boiling Point star Stephen revealed that after Bruce visited the biopic’s set one day, he sent a moving message of thanks to the actor.
“I’m racing to get to the airport, and I got this text, and it was so beautiful,” the 51-year-old gushed.
“His text just said: ‘Thank you so much.... My father passed away a while ago and I felt like I saw him today. Thank you for giving me that memory.’”
The actor – who has received worldwide praise for his most recent role playing a father in Netflix's Adolescence – called the text message from Bruce “better than any award that [he] could ever receive” in his life.
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“I was crying reading the text... you couldn’t ask for anything more, you know. To share that with someone was gorgeous. He’s a lovely man,” Stephen added.
“He’s an icon, he’s a hero. He’s a working-class hero,” the actor also said. He later described Bruce as “lovely” and “humble” while discussing meeting the singer in more detail.
Bruce and his father Douglas shared a strained relationship which the ‘Dancing in the Dark’ singer has opened up about on many occasions in the past, including in his 2016 autobiography Born to Run.
Stephen used Bruce’s audiobook recording of the autobiography to learn more about Douglas, revealing on the podcast that he used the way Bruce would put on a voice when speaking about his father to help inspire his own portrayal.
