Rick Springfield far from a flash in the pan

Pop star and actor Rick Springfield has rolled with the punches for ages.

Merryl Streep and Rick Springfield in Ricki and the Flash

Rick Springfield doesn’t have a complicated relationship with acting. The Australian singer who emerged from 1960s band Zoot to become a US chart topper with Jessie’s Girl, says maybe it’s just us misconstruing him dipping in and out of the profession.

“I’ve done a lot of work, it just hasn’t been seen,” he says with a laugh, recalling a recent US television series in which he played a musician, Drop Dead Diva.

“It’s a show nobody’s ever seen, just a cable show in America, a cute show,” he says. “But I’ve been doing stuff like that continually. I guess you only get noticed when you do something high profile but that’s what I’ve been doing, working away.”

Similarly, he spent three years in the 90s shooting a series in New Zealand, High Tide, that he says: “Unless you were a nightwatchman or insomniac, you wouldn’t have seen it!

“But it’s still working the muscle,” he adds. “Putting your energy towards the thing you love.”

That work has paid off in ­spades with his present recurring role in the acclaimed and pilloried US drama True Detective and opposite Meryl Streep, no less, in Jonathan Demme’s new feature, Ricki and the Flash.

The 66-year-old realises this is a step up in profile and he has signed with a new agent in Los Angeles as new offers come piling in. Springfield plays the long-time boyfriend of Streep’s Ricki, a supermarket cashier whose real life revolves around music and her regular bar gig at a divey bar in Tarzana, California. Springfield’s Greg is also her band’s guitarist.

The film brings together some disparate parts and pushes through some conventions to a very satisfying conclusion.

The disparate parts include Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody’s script, direction from Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and Stop Making Sense) and another singing role for Streep. She may not be known for her voice but has sung in Postcards From the Edge and Ironweed through to A Prairie Home Companion, Mamma Mia and, most recently, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods.

The Australian expat admits he’s “very pleased to be in it”. But Demme should be just as pleased to have Springfield. He is an integral part of the director’s key move, which is to have Ricki’s band play live in each scene. Even Springfield didn’t realise there would be no overdubbing until he saw the film. The rapport among the band feels genuine and Springfield’s humility about this high-profile success is just as genuine.

“It’s a tough life, the acting thing,” he says, noting Streep even confided there were roles she didn’t get.

“Even Meryl fricking Streep! And not because of the acting but just because they see someone different in the part.

“You’ve got to have a real hard, thick skin and moving around a bit as a kid — my dad was a lifer in the Aussie army — I developed a thick skin,” he adds.

But he was the right man in the right place for the role. Demme needed an actor and a musician for the role, particularly someone who could lock horns with Streep.

“Also he wanted a relationship on stage because a lot’s said between us while the songs are going on,” he says. “And I felt very flattered because they looked at a lot of musicians who could act and looked at a lot of actors who could play.”

Yes, but most actors say they can play a few chords. Springfield agrees. “I guess I’ve stayed in there, I’ve toured and stayed acting so it wasn’t like, how do you do this again?” he says. “I was ready.”

Most of Springfield’s family remain in Sydney, the city he left in 1971, hoping to find further his recording career in the US after finding success with Darryl Cotton and Beeb Birtles in pop band Zoot.

Ricki and the Flash assesses the melancholy that can turn to bitterness for the aspiring musician. For every Springfield, there are hundreds of Rickis still gigging away, some dealing in their own way with unmet expectations.

“It’s a bittersweet thing because this band, especially Ricki, Meryl’s character, still has some sharp edges because she didn’t make it, especially because of what she sacrificed,” Springfield says. His character, Greg, jokes in one cut scene about being on the cover of Shredder magazine in the 80s.

“So he had a brush with it too but he’s more settled about where he is; he’s still playing guitar and respected in the band.

“He’s more at peace than I certainly would be in that position,” Springfield says. “I had a lot of big goals and a lot of drive and I’d probably be a little more bitter than Greg if I was playing in a bar band. But I know a lot of those guys and if they’re still playing, they still love playing.”

So how are relationships with your peers when you do make it ahead of them?

Springfield still sees his first band mates, and his friends are still excited by any successes.

“I haven’t met anyone who had an attitude about it,” he says. “And, honestly, knowing who I am and the friends I have, I wouldn’t expect it of them either.”

He recalls his Zoot band member Birtles tasting success in the US before he did, with Little River Band.

“I wasn’t even playing, I was just writing then and there was a little bit of me going ‘Oh man, dammit,’ but most of me thought ‘OK, he can do it, it’s possible.’ ”

“I always looked at it as someone making it,” he adds. “I’ve never looked at it as thwarting me. And I know that happens in Hollywood where some people think if he made it, there’s less room up there for me, but it’s not so. “You make your own path and no one can walk that path.”

This weekend in Review Stephen Romei reviews Ricki and the Flash