news - Wed 1 Dec 2010
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Tron: Legacy - Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde interview

Tron: Legacy

We spoke to Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde about playing two of the key characters in Tron: Legacy; Garrett stars as Sam, the rebellious 27-year-old son of Grid creator Kevin Flynn, while Olivia is fearless warrior Quorra.

Steven Lisberger say Tron creates a world within a world, do you feel your social network is melding into the real world?

Garrett Hedlund: I think my character most definitely does that... you start off with a kid that's haunted with his father's disappearance. He's turned his back on the ENCOM money and lives a much more independent, secluded life, but also in the real world this whole Grid universe is a myth in his mind, a bedtime story basically, but now with the help and influence of Alan Bradley, and the motivation to go on and see, you come to find yourself in this whole world of the unknown.Now you've gotta get the wheels turning to start figuring things out and putting the pieces together... now you're in there and you've gotta seek and find... but beside the practical sets we had, you're in a world that didn't exist.But Joe Kosinski was so great at providing "pre-vis" clips, so you could see reference shots of what this character was doing. You'd see the action, and get to see what this world is, so now you can go put yourself in that position, on that mark, and look around and explore it all a little bit.

What was the rehearsal process like - was there a lot of training involved?

Olivia Wilde: Yeah, we trained a lot to try to fit into the suits and do the fighting, but we also had a really great time talking about the script, working through some of the scenes. I found that the writers and every creative person involved really welcomed us to be a part of that creative process - I really valued that, because I feel like I was there for the conception. We were really invited to give some input into who these people were and what should happen in these scenes, really focusing on the family story and the human story, so the rehearsals were really important.Then being on set and discovering these scenes in this "space" - often these sets were so beautiful and I am really grateful that they took the trouble to build these big, beautiful practical sets because it certainly informed me of how different this world was and how non-organic it was.

Did you study any kind of martial art? Do you have a favourite action heroine?

Olivia Wilde: I think Joan of Arc is my favourite action heroine, and Quorra was largely based on Joan of Arc. As for martial arts, I think we did everything, we did cross-training, every type of mixed martial art fighting. Myself and Garrett Hedlund play-fought all the time.I grew up dancing - I was a ballerina for a long time - so that was really helpful for me in learning all the [fight] choreography. We had an amazing stunt team who were really helpful in making us look great, look like warriors - it was really fun!

What was the hardest stunt you did?

Garrett Hedlund: I had to do a lot of wirework, where you're hoisted up in a harness, which really gets you in the [groin] region - you've gotta be hanging up there for a while, and you have do the stunt once at 50, then at 75 per cent, then at 100 per cent - then they say at 110 per cent. That means you get no restraining, you're going at the speed of gravity, however fast that will take you. Taking those impacts, the suits are slightly delicate - you usually have jeans and T-shirt on but now you're in a self-illuminating suit that is quite glorious, doing all this stuff that involves imagination and agility, training and focus.

Photos: Disney

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