ONE of Hollywood’s most successful actors and a five-time Academy Award nominee, Jeff Bridges’s most recent performance in Crazy Heart deservedly garnered the iconic performer his first Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.
Bridges earned his first Oscar nod in 1971 for Best Supporting Actor in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. Three years later, he received his second Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Michael Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. By 1984 he landed top kudos with a Best Actor nomination for Starman, that performance also earning him a Golden Globe nomination. In 2001 he was honored with another Golden Globe nomination and his fourth Oscar nomination for his role in The Contender.
The actor’s multifaceted career has cut a wide swath across all genres. He has starred in numerous box office and critical hits, including Iron Man, The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Jagged Edge, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Blown Away, Fearless and American Heart. From performances in comedies such as The Big Lebowski and The Mirror Has Two Faces to dramas like The Open Road and White Squall, Bridges’s talent has long earned him respect among his peers and fans.
Jeff Bridges returns as Kevin Flynn and Clu in Tron: Legacy, the high-tech 3D adventure that is the sequel to his 1982 smash Tron. The new film hits Philippine theaters on December 17 in Disney Digital 3D, IMAX 3D and regular format.
What’s it like to approach a character 27 years later?
I never thought of it in those terms, really. I never thought of it as playing the same guy. He hasn’t changed all that much. Well, maybe some of his enthusiasm for technology has been dampened a little bit. After all, he’s trapped inside a computer, so perhaps some of that fondness he had for his technology...maybe reflecting on it, he might think, “Perhaps there are some other things in life that I should have been paying attention to.”
With all of that technology, what’s the human story with Tron: Legacy?
Well, one of the elements of the story is just what we were talking about, technology. It’s so exciting to come to realize all the things that you can do. And what’s happening with technology is that it is developing so fast that we haven’t really developed any ethics to go along with it, or knowledge of what some of the ramifications of this technology will be. So that’s a theme that the film deals with.
The father/son connection—how does that figure into the story?
Yes, the father-and-son aspect is an integral part of the whole movie. But I don’t want to give too much away, because there are some twists and turns in that story. But, to give you the basic outline, it’s about a son rescuing his father.
At Comic-Con, the fans got totally behind the film. What about this project attracts such attention from the sci-fi world?
The fans have been so wonderful, they really gave birth to Tron: Legacy. Two years ago we showed a small portion of what this film might be, a test reel, and it got such a great reaction from the fans that Disney got behind the project. One of the things that I know attracted me to the first Tron and this one, as well is that it’s really creating a myth for modern times. Myths can help us to navigate some of our challenges in our life. And as we were talking before, technology is a tremendous challenge, because we’re so attracted to things that give us instant gratification.
That compelled Steven Lisberger, who created the original Tron. How is it to pick up what he began?
Joseph Kosinski is a wonderful director, and it’s always interesting to me where directors come from. You can have directors who were actors or writers, and that leads to a certain quality in the film. In Joe’s case, he’s an architect by training, and so the world of Tron: Legacy is very grounded. Of course, he’s shot multiple commercials that have amazing special effects and a great deal of cinematic technology. So he has all of that, but also he has a wonderful spirit. He’s very inclusive, and he’s gathered all these incredibly talented people around him who he respects. He listens to what everyone has to say. That’s a great atmosphere in which to work.
What’s the biggest difference in filming the two?
Well, 27 years ago, the original was a very cutting-edge movie. Of course looking back, it looks like an old black-and-white TV show. But at the time we were making the original Tron, there was no Internet. Our cell phones were these things we carried around in big suitcases. We shot that movie in 70 millimeter black-and-white, and then it was sent to Korea, where a bunch of technicians hand-tinted all the frames to make the suits glow. Now in Tron: Legacy, again it’s cutting-edge technology. We’re the next-generation of 3D cinematography after Avatar. It takes the technology that Jim Cameron came up with to the next level. Now, our suits actually do glow, and they throw light on the other actors, so they’re practical. I think one of the really great things that Joe, being an architect, brought with him was the ability to marry actual sets with CGI sets. It’s very hard for the audience to tell where one ends and one begins.
What about the diverse cast?
Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund were great to work with. They put so much energy and study into the physicality of their roles. Three or four months before we started shooting, they were practicing all kinds of fighting techniques and skills that they were going to have to use in the film. They were very diligent in their preparation. They’re also just great folks. While it was a lot of fun to make this movie, there was a certain amount of discomfort in aspects of it. Both of them were very up to handling it all, and did so extremely well.
And through film technology, you act opposite your younger self. How did that work? As an actor, is that liberating?
I love going to movies myself, and whenever I see a big epic film where the character has aged from being a young boy to an old man, traditionally there are different actors playing him in those stages. That’s always a little bump for me as I’m sitting there, when they change from one actor to the next. But now as an actor myself, it’s very gratifying to know that I can play myself or the character that I’m playing at any age, from an infant to an old man. That’s really exciting, especially to be part of this groundbreaking technology.
Where has Kevin Flynn, your character, been for 27 years?
Kevin went into the computer and he got stuck in there. I’m not going to tell you how that happened, but he got stuck in there, and he’s been in there for more than 20 years. That’s where we find him.
What’s happened to the world inside and outside the machine in those years?
Outside, the world has pretty much gone on as we know it today. Inside, it has been morphing into a more advanced version of what we saw in the original Tron, in some beautiful and not-so-beautiful ways.
What do you think has kept fans interested in this story for more than 27 years, what sort of forces?
I know that Michael Sheen was saying that he saw the first film when he was 11 years old, and how exciting it was for him. And that excitement stayed with him, even until today. He’s excited to be involved in this film these many years later. I think as a kid, that kind of experience, being moved by a film like that, it stays with you forever.
In Photo: Bridges and Garrett Hedlund as father and son explore the human angle of Tron: Legacy.
