The gradual unveiling of TRON LEGACY continued this past weekend, as Disney invited a horde of online, print and international journalists out to Digital Domain in Venice, California for an all-day "long lead junket" that essentially served as an interactive tour through the press notes. The thoroughness of the event - which included press conferences, design presentations, a primer on "The Mythology of TRON" and a peek at twenty-three minutes of the still-unfinished film - was impressive, but it also underscored the studio's challenge in marketing the film to a non-geek audience. While we've been sold on this movie since Disney sprung the Joseph Kosinski-directed test reel on us at Comic Con '08, most moviegoers aren't up on their TRON lore. They may be familiar with the iconography (i.e. light cycles, discs and, of course, the glowing suits), but the original film itself is still very much a cult item. And though the new film boasts breathtaking 3-D environs and groundbreaking visual f/x from Eric Barba's Oscar-winning BENJAMIN BUTTON team, that game done changed a year ago. The novelty of 3-D has worn off. TRON LEGACY won't be a $200 million-plus smash if it's just a fan-servicing, nostalgia-infused light show. You need something more to connect with audiences on that kind of scale. Something grounded. If TRON LEGACY works as a human drama embedded in a digital world, it'll be due to Jeff Bridges, who returns to the grid as programmer Kevin Flynn and the designer's run-amok creation CLU 2.0 (played by the actor - via Barba's disconcertingly seamless f/x - as his younger self). Though Steven Lisberger's TRON wasn't a particularly warm film, it looks as though Kosinski and screenwriters Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis are banking on a heart-tugging father-son story to win over the folks who don't spritz their trousers at the first sight of a Recognizer. Judging from the twenty-three minutes of footage (which I'm embargoed from writing about), Bridges is emotionally locked-in. Perhaps this is because Bridges was brought on early to help develop the concept of TRON LEGACY; more likely, it's because Bridges always does the work. There hasn't been a more dependable or resourceful movie star over the last four decades; even when he's reprising a character like Flynn or Duane Jackson, he never repeats himself. In fact, I'd argue that Bridges has never made a truly bad film because he's worth watching even when the material has failed him. Who's had a comparable run? Before I got the chance to spend ten torturously brief minutes with Bridges during Saturday's junket, I watched him hold court during a press conference, where he spoke excitedly about everything from the technical/performance challenge of bringing CLU 2.0 to life to his love for the vector arcade classic BATTLEZONE. He didn't come back to TRON for a paycheck; he came back because he's proud of the original, and believed they had the opportunity to make cinema history a second time. When you see the finished CLU, I think you'll understand why. When I finally sat down with Bridges, we talked about the strange exhilaration of reliving your youth through f/x wizardry, his feelings on technology, and because I couldn't help myself, John Huston's FAT CITY. If I'd had an extra five minutes, we'd have delved into CUTTER'S WAY.
Mr. Beaks: I can't imagine they would ever make a TRON sequel without you. How much input did you have into the shaping of the concept and the story?
Jeff Bridges: They invited me to come on board for that because one of the things I was interested in - along with all the technological stuff that brought me on board on the first one - was I thought this was an opportunity to create a modern day myth about technology, and how we might navigate these waters today. We have all of this technology at our fingertips, and how we use it is really important. They were in agreement on that, and they said, "Please bring your thoughts to the table; we're interested in what you have to say." So I did that quite a bit.
Beaks: Are there particular story elements that you can point to as yours?
Bridges: It's hard to really separate it now. We all just jammed on it. No one really says, "That's mine!"
Beaks: It was kind of communal.
Bridges: Yeah.
Beaks: How would you define your relationship with technology?
Bridges: I kind of have a love/hate thing going with it. I can't keep up. I won't Tweet or Facebook. I have a website that I have a lot of fun keeping up. I created it originally to pitch this album, BE HERE SOON, that I put out a few years ago. And then I just started looking at it as a canvas that I could shoot out to the world. It's like having your own radio and TV station - and as the bandwidth gets bigger it's going to get more sophisticated. I love that - and email and all of that stuff. But you get trapped by it, man! You just sit there... you put this stuff out, but then you've got to answer all of the stuff coming back in. It's daunting, man. It keeps comin' at ya. And to sit in a chair all day long at this thing is kind of depressing. But it's also fun. It's a challenge how we balance it out - and that's kind of what [TRON LEGACY] is about in a way.
Beaks: You seem so eager to preserve the secrets of the filmmaking process, particularly the visual f/x.
Bridges: Yeah, yeah. I know...
Beaks: It's the old magic trick thing. If you know how the trick works, it's not magic anymore.
Bridges: Yeah! And that goes not only for this movie, which is challenging enough, but any movie - to do what we're doing here, to entice them to come without giving away too much.
Beaks: It's so cool seeing that youthful visage of yours [as Clu]. We first saw it at Comic Con, but now it's much more seamlessly integrated. I see that young guy, and I expect to see him sitting down at a diner with Stacy Keach.
Bridges: Right!
Beaks: I get very nostalgic seeing that fella.
Bridges: That's good to hear!
Beaks: How does it feel for you?
Bridges: Well, one of the cool things about this technology... I'm a movie lover, and I go to see a lot of films, and whenever you get two actors playing the same character from different ages, it's always kind of a little bump. Especially if you're cutting back and forth; then it's very confusing. But with this technology, I can play myself at any age. I can play myself as a little kid! It's wild, that thought!
Beaks: Would you like to do that?
Bridges: Yeah! I know some movies where you could play an old man and a young baby. There's something wonderful about that.
Beaks: I brought up Stacy Keach for a reason. FAT CITY is one of my favorite films of the '70s. And I know it's been restored.
Bridges: I thought you were going to say, "And there's a sequel!"
Beaks: I don't know if I need to see that. It's sad enough as it is. But I know they've restored it.
Bridges: I hadn't heard that.
Beaks: Yeah. It's one of those films that hasn't completely gotten its due. There are people who love it, but there's not a wide-enough audience that's aware of that film. It's an amazing movie.
Bridges: I'm very happy about that. You know, Connie Hall, the wonderful DP, shot that. I remember Ray Stark almost fired him because of the differences between his exposures. In the bar, you could hardly see... (squints) it was so dark. And then outside, it was like (shields his eyes from the blinding sun). That's what Hall and Huston were going for, to make the exterior feel like you just came out of a dark bar; it's really blown out. He's been copied since. A lot of people do that now. But it was startling when it first came out.
Beaks: I think it was startling in part because people had a certain expectation of Huston. And here he's working with this more experimental cinematographer. Considering where FAT CITY stands in Huston's career, what was it like working with him on that film?
Bridges: It was interesting because I did a movie after that where he played my father. But in FAT CITY, I was always kind of sad [on set]. He was so nice to Stacy; he played backgammon with him. Looking back on it, I realize it was a directorial choice; he kept me back on my heels. That's how he wanted Ernie Munger to be: not really sure of himself. But when I acted with him a couple of years later on WINTER KILLS, he couldn't have been nicer. "Oh, Jeff! How are you doing!" It was fascinating. He was just wonderful to work with in both worlds.
Beaks: How do you feel about directors who play mind games to elicit a certain kind of performance from an actor?
Bridges: (Pause) That happens on many different levels - sometimes on a conscious level, and other times on an unconscious level. I accept that. I try to empower a director to have power over me, to take me past my own conceptions and have their way with me sort of, so I can transcend myself and my thoughts about how the character might be, so it's kind of a surprise for me. It's a good thing.
Beaks: Do you find that young directors can be deferential to you? Do you ever have to let them know it's okay for them to direct you?
Bridges: I try to do that with directors who've never directed anything as well as the old guys. There's only so much time to do the work you have to do; you want to get deep as quickly as possible. So I try to tell the director how I like to work and how I've worked in the past, and I try to find out how he likes to work. I try to be as open and candid as I can with that.
Beaks: On something as big and tech-heavy as TRON LEGACY, do you find there's still room for the human element? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by it all?
Bridges: Yeah. It's a challenge on a movie like this. You've got to work on your "overwhelmed", and not let it get away from you. This is probably a life thing, too: you can't spend too much time resenting the way it is not matching your perception of how it would go down. You've got to get with the program.
