star was in tears when he received a "beautiful" text from his "hero" .
The British actor, 51, filmed scenes as the music legend's late father, Douglas "Dutch" Springsteen, and after wrapping received a message from the musician, 75, who had been on set. He told Stephen he felt as though he'd been reunited with his father via the powerful performance.
The biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere is due for release later this year and sees three-time Golden Globe winner Jeremy Allen White portray "the Boss", and Jeremy Strong play Bruce's manager and record producer.
Reflecting on the production and text, Stephen said: "[Bruce] sent me the most gorgeous texts I've ever had in my life because I do, I play his dad when his dad's like, I play him in the eighties... It 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."
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The film follows Bruce's career after his breakout 1982 album Nebraska, of which more than one million copies were sold in the US alone. Stephen said he was delighted to be offered the role of his father, who died in 1998, in the movie, due for release by 20th Century Studios later this year.
Speaking on Stephen, from Kirkby, Merseyside, continued: "He's a working-class hero. He's an icon to thousands of millions. And he just, 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.'
"I was crying reading the text, do you know what I mean? Oh mate. It was beautiful. You couldn't ask for anything more, you know, to share that with someone was gorgeous. He's a lovely man."
Bruce previously shared insight into his difficult family relationship and said his father couldn’t stand him and said fewer than 1,000 words to him growing up. In his memoirs Born to Run the singer recalled how his factory worker father Doug largely ignored him, writing: "He loved me but he couldn’t stand me. He felt we competed for my mother’s affections." When Bruce was 19, his parents moved to California leaving him to fend for himself in New Jersey.
Stephen also plays a father in recent hit Adolescence, which over four parts tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie who is arrested on suspicion of murder. His actor, , has been widely praised and .
