Rick Springfield swaps Jessie’s Girl for Meryl Streep’s girl — co-star Mamie Gummer

RICK Springfield and Mamie Gummer — aka Meryl Streep’s daughter — discuss their strong Aussie connections ahead of the local premiere of their film Ricki and the Flash.

IN 1981, Aussie rocker Rick Springfield wished that he had Jessie’s Girl. Thirty-four years later, Springfield is back with Meryl’s girl — actor Mamie Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep.

The pair are hitting Melbourne and Sydney to promote Ricki and the Flash, a movie drama in which Streep plays a muso who left her children behind to follow her rock ’n roll dreams.

MEET MAMIE: Meryl Streep’s daughter is carving out her own acting career

Gummer, 32, plays Ricki’s angry daughter and Springfield, 65, is Ricki’s guitarist and love interest.

Ricki and the Flash opens in Australian cinemas on August 27.

Springfield plays Meryl Streep’s guitarist in Ricki and the Flash. Streep couldn’t fake it — the band played all the music in the movie live. Picture: Sony Pictures

Springfield, who relocated to the US in the 1970s, cancelled his first ever solo tour of his homeland to take the role alongside Oscar-winner Streep.

Besides a slot on the CountDown Spectacular revue in 2007, the last time he actually toured here was as a member of Zoot alongside Darryl Cotton — and that band split up in 1971.

“I think the gods don’t want me to tour here — throwing a Meryl Streep and Jonathan Demme movie at me when it was all booked,” he said in Melbourne yesterday, shaking his head.

“We will come back; we’re looking into that now. But I think everybody understood: (the movie) was one of those great shots you don’t wanna miss.”

Springfield is no stranger to the country that raised him, however. He gets back at least once a year to visit his mother, Eileen, who still resides in the family home in Melbourne.

“She used to come over to the States a lot, but now she’s 95 so it’s getting beyond her. She’s pretty awesome though — she’s still sharp, still lives in the house we lived in. After my dad died she just moved all the clothes out and continued on. She’s a pretty ballsy woman.”

Though she was very young at the time, Gummer, too, has done time Down Under. She lived and attended kindergarten in Melbourne for six months in 1987 while her mum was playing Lindy Chamberlain in Fred Schepisi’s film Evil Angels.

“In Toorak?” Gummer asked, checking her pronunciation. “I was just texting my parents to find out what school I went to — it was Glamorgan.

Gummer lived in Australia while her mother played Linndy Chamberlain alongside Sam Neill in Evil Angels

“I remember ruling the roost of our playground. There was this tree I could climb up on and peer over the fence to the primary school where my brother was, keeping an eye on him. I also remember being on the back seat of a bike my dad used to ride around and a Michael Jackson concert. But that’s it.”

Asked if her parents recall Mamie picking up an Aussie accent in the playground, she laughed.

“Well I’m an actress, so ... It’s so tragic, I do tend to pick up on that stuff. But I’m not quite my mum — my mum is insane. She’ll be talking to our Chinese accountant on the phone and take on a Chinese accent without realising she’s doing it.”

For the record, one of the first things Springfield told Streep when he met her was that her Australian accent in Evil Angels was “incredible”.

Gummer, who has a recurring role in TV drama The Good Wife, calls working with her mother on Ricki and the Flash a “profound” experience.

“I know my mother really loves me a lot, but not so much to stake a $20 million movie on me,” she laughed.

“So her belief in me and my ability, it meant a lot.”

Flash pack ... Gummer, Springfield and Streep at the New York premiere of Ricki earlier this month. Picture: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images/AFP

Springfield, meanwhile, is undergoing something of a career renaissance. He has a new album, Mayhem, due for release in October, he collaborated with Dave Grohl on Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways, his novel Magnificent Vibration made the New York Times bestseller list last year, and his cameo as a weirdly tight-faced therapist in True Detective this year has been declared one of the best things about a so-so second season.

“I got a lot of emails like: ‘Wow, I didn’t know that was you, you totally creeped me out, man’,” Springfield said of his True Detective gig. “Even guys that know me were creeped out by it.”

Even Rick Springfield’s mates were creeped out by his role in this season of True Detective.

Originally published as Rick Springfield swaps Jessie’s Girl for Meryl Streep’s girl — co-star Mamie Gummer