Set Visit: Interview with Olivia Wilde about Tron: Legacy

When someone says, hey do you want to visit the set of TRON: LEGACY, you do two things. First you pass out from geek overload, then you wipe the drool off your face while screaming, ‘Yes!’ I was lucky enough to check out the glowing world of TRON last year where I got a chance to chat with star Olivia Wilde. Yeah, the hot one who is married to a prince. This star of the TV show HOUSE and the upcoming COWBOYS & ALIENS (I’m not jealous…I’m not jealous…I’m not…alright, I am) began our interview joking about doing a Michael Jackson tribute dance in her tight costume and gave us some info on doing the fight scenes and filming in 3D. Her character Quorra is the only one to use a sword, she told us, and laughingly mentioned that we would be able to buy them soon. Um, that’s a toy I’d camp out overnight for. TRON: LEGACY open December 17th, 2010.

Olivia Wilde

Fighting, fighting, action, action.

What’s the craziest thing you had to do?

Can you tell us a little about your character?

Well, just to answer your question, I sort of don’t think I really can without giving away any good stuff, but, well, yeah, I don’t think I can. I don’t think I can without ruining it, without taking away a lot of the great surprises. The great thing about my character is that she’s unlike any other within this world. And it’s, blah.

Do you have any weapons

I use the sword. I’m the only who uses the sword and then we have the disc and shields as well as weapons. So it’s kind of cool. You will be able to buy them soon.

Do you have a human counterpart?

I cannot say. There’s so much I want to say, but I cannot say.

You got excited when you mentioned TRON.

Oh, for me TRON had always been something I knew as kind of a cool retro funky thing that I had seen referenced in everything from music videos to television shows, either on Family Guy, you know, it had become kind of a, in the same wave of funky 80s things coming back and being ironic from my generation, I feel that TRON was a huge part of that and I think that I was only mildly aware of how revolutionary it really was for its time. And then once, about a year ago when I started talking to them about doing this film I became much more familiar with it. And that’s when I really learned about it and became even more excited.

But what I think is really great is we’re taking a film, obviously this is the longest time that’s ever passed between an original and a sequel but it’s parallel and similar in that it’s just as revolutionary for our time. the technology that’s going into it has never been seen before. It goes so far from beyond just being a 3D epic film. It’s new in every department, in every way, every department is doing something they’ve never done before. Everything from wardrobe to special effects to lighting to acting, really, we’re all doing things we’ve never done before. It’s really interesting.

So, you know, for the original TRON players, from what I’ve heard, because of course, we’re lucky to have many of them back in the film, which is so cool. We’re constantly hearing stories from Bruce Boxleitner or Bridges, and Steven Lisberger about what they went through to make the original, and how unfamiliar they were with the terms. We were saying yesterday like everything from the term program, you know, to bit. You know, these were terms that they were totally unfamiliar with, it sounded really technologically advanced and foreign. And to us now it’s everyday lingo. So, I’m amazed that they were able to turn it into a story and have it be something kind of really funny and entertaining at the time, having it all be mostly gobbledy-gook to them.

So I’m just amazed that they were able to pull it off and with, you know, far less resources and, it was always very strange and new, the idea of the special effects that they put on in post productions was completely new and they took many risks. So I think we have a responsibility to take just as many risks. So that means it’s a hard thing to put together, and when it takes a really long time to make it happen, everybody keeps reminding ourselves, you know, well, no one said it would be easy to do something revolutionary. And I think that’s kind of exciting.

The 3D seems like it will add a fantastic aspect to the film.

I think what’s cool is that we’re going so far beyond the 3D. I think that there really utilizing all the new technology, technology people haven’t heard of yet. So that it won’t just be the 3D that makes it special. I think that’s kind of exciting. We’ve been saying that the movie should– the movie will feel like a ride, which is what people expect now from a film. I mean, people’s home entertainment systems are now so advance why do to the movies? But Tron will be a great reason to go. And I think that’s really fun.

There’s a lot of secrecy surrounding this film. Is that hard to maintain?

I think it’s really hard not to tell everybody because there’s so many cool elements of it that I would love to be able to describe.

Did you watch the original TRON?

Yeah. Yeah. Now I’ve seen it so many times.

How’s it working with Bridges?

Oh, he’s so cool. I mean, he’s The Dude. It doesn’t get cooler than that. It’s funny TWILIGHT was in town shooting and, or whatever they’re called, NEW MOON, and they wanted to have a bowl off, and I was like oh bring it on, because you know we have The Dude, I was like do you really want to have a bowl off with us, because… No, but he’s amazing. He’s really like a leader and it’s been great for Garrett and I to work with him so much to follow his examples, his professionalism is unparalleled, I’ve never worked with anyone so humble and gracious, so it’s really cool to see him put just as much into a sci fi flick like this that he would into LEBOWSKI, into a Cohen Brother’s movie, into anything.

I mean, I can see why he’s shown so much, of course, in Iron Man, I see the way he approaches it, it’s just like a character piece.