Gaby Hoffmann, Who Portrays Bruce Springsteen’s Mom, Says Rocker Was ‘Hands Off’ on Movie Set (Exclusive)

Gaby Hoffman says she had Bruce Springsteen’s complete blessing to portray his mother, Adele, in his upcoming biopic.

Speaking to PEOPLE at the premiere of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere at the New York Film Festival, Hoffman — who stars as Adele alongside Jeremy Allen White as The Boss — shared that the subject himself visited the cast on set.

Springsteen was present during production, “giving his blessings and expressing his gratitude,” Hoffman, 43, shared. “Very, lovely incredible man. He was hands off.”

Elsewhere in her conversation with PEOPLE, the Transparent alum opened up about the challenges of portraying a woman who Springsteen has called his “light,” while also depicting a period of turmoil in his family’s history.

“I don’t exactly understand how we do what we do as actors, it’s a mystery,” Hoffman shared. “But I’m offered a lot of tools.”

“I had an incredible set to live inside of, all of the hair and makeup, all of the scaffolding that us actors have, and [director and writer Scott Cooper]’s beautiful screenplay and his loving hands holding me … you do as much as you can,” she added.

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In addition to the script, Hoffman also spent time reading about Springsteen’s history and looked at photographs of the real-life Adele.

“But really it’s about being able to be in the moment, and drop into your heart and soul and find the presence of the moment,” she added. “Whether you’re playing Bruce Springsteen’s mom or a fictional character that nobody’s ever known, it’s the same process for me. ”

Deliver Me from Nowhere “chronicles the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 Nebraska album when he was a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggling to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past,” according to an official synopsis for the movie.

Jeremy Strong and Paul Walter Hauser costar in the biopic as Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, and a guitar technician, respectively.

“Recorded on a 4-track recorder in Springsteen’s New Jersey bedroom, the album marked a pivotal time in his life and is considered one of his most enduring works — a raw, haunted acoustic record populated by lost souls searching for a reason to believe,” the synopsis adds.

The movie is written and directed by Cooper and based on author Warren Zanes’ book of the same name. Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Gaby Hoffman, Marc Maron and David Krumholtz also costar in the film.