When a drunken Sean Penn told Bruce Springsteen he’d turn one of his songs into a movie: “OK, Sean, sure”

In 1981, a 21-year-old actor with no film credits to his name drunkenly told his girlfriend’s musician brother that he wanted to adapt one of his songs into a movie. Normally, this kind of thing would barely cause a ripple in the universe, as few ambitious projects pitched after “15 to 17 Heinekens” ever become a reality. However, in this case, the young actor was Sean Penn, and the musician was Bruce Springsteen, and the movie did indeed come to the big screen nearly a decade later. This unique story of two icons agreeing to collaborate came about when Penn...