JoBlo had the opportunity to sit down with Garrett Hedlund on the set of Tron: Legacy. Garret plays Sam Flynn who is the son of Kevin Fynn ( Jeff Bridges), star of the original Tron.
This from JoBlo.....
JB: So can you talk about the character that you're playing here? You're Flynn's son and we don’t really know that much more about it.
Hedlund: Well it's pretty much, you know, film sort of takes place 20 years after Flynn is has sort of mysteriously disappeared. And starts off kind of with me. Sort of see this kid, I mean he's the biggest shareholder in the company, you know, really at this point. And at and sort of, you know, grew up without his father. Lived with the grandparents, and Allen Bradley kind of always looked after him. You know, got him out of trouble, things like that. And then, you know, Allen pays a visit and sort of ushers me to kind of go, you know, to Flynn's kind of go, you know, go to the office and check things out. And I go there and, you know. Me as Sam as a character is kind of a kid with a lot but sort of does a little with it, you know? Very seclusive and sort of, you know, kind of in his own, you know, introverted and things like that I guess. And sort of does all these kind of extreme things just because he can. You know, he's very interested in, you know, the base jumping and motorcycles and you know, the container home by the water with the wonderful view. And, you know, grew up without his father and is now kind of going to search or find his father. And once he gets into this world it's, he was right all this time. And then there's the light bikes and the discs and the game grid and all this sort of stuff comes to play.
Hedlund: Yeah initially when we started this, I mean I started the first week in January. Started with motorcycle training and getting my license and after the hour and a half of motorcycle training, I'd drive over to 8711 where the stunt coordinator David Leach, that's his compound. And so we'd do the fight training there; we'd do, you know, parkour sort of exercises and jumps. And do that for an hour and a half and a lot of hand-to-hand combat. And then trained with the trainer Logan Hood who, you know, sort of trained all the 300 guys for Jeff Silver. And trained with him for an hour, intensive training so. You know, the two months of that felt like I'd already filmed the film, you know? And now we come on to this and we got to continue and, you know, keep it up. But everything, it's, you know, great sort of abilities to acquire. You know, the parkour and stuff was definitely exciting and being able to see that you're actually doing it and, you know, jumping over cars and, you know, a single leap. Legs first and pushing off, you know, dive out with your arms and throw the knees through. And, you know, very fun stuff.
JB: Did you get to, I know the light cycles are CG but are you actually riding a motorcycle at some point in this?
Hedlund: Motorcycle yeah. The beginning sequence in the film is kind of a pseudo chase and also, yeah a big old sort of chase sequence with the motorcycle there. And then we get onto the light bikes and I think that we’ll be doing in September back in L.A. or something, motion capture or something.
JB: Did you do any father-son bonding with Jeff Bridges?
Hedlund: Yeah, somewhat. I mean, you know, very long days here and a lot of the times it can be distracting. I mean, usually you had time between camera setups but most of us are always being fiddled with, you know? Getting lights glued back on or battery packs changed and or this and that and, you know, it's always kind of something and--
JB: I don’t know how much of a fan you were of the original film but have you had that moment where you say to yourself oh my god I'm in Tron?
Hedlund: Yeah from the, I mean, when we were doing the disc stuff for me because we haven’t really tackled the light jets, or the light bike stuff yet or anything but, you know, a couple weeks ago we had to do the disc game platform. And I remember watching the first one and, you know, when I must have watched, I probably watched it in 2003. So when you're watching that you just say you're kind of giggling to yourself like man there's a story around, you know, being within a sort of computer. And all this and they're wearing hockey helmets, and throwing, you know, a Frisbee is the weapon. Or like, you know, and then it actually was the Frisbee and so now, you know, how many years, you know, after that point when I just watched it out of pure amusement, you know? Now you're throwing, I can't even say it. But no, you're throwing the discs and doing the spin and, you know, saying your lines and it's all very surreal within that, yeah.
JB: How many discs can you hit?
Hedlund: I hit them in the head. Take 37 apples.
JB: 40 feet away, it was a great shot.
Hedlund: It was funny because these guys are sitting at a monitor which, I mean, you know, where their video village was like that. It's so hard, if you would’ve seen the target that I had to throw at it was basi-- it was literally the size of a barn. And it stuck to my hand and flings off this way and sort of does a curve back this way and they're all watching the monitors with the glasses on them. And like oh I wonder where that one's going to go. But I'm like Claudio! And like they all, you know, Claudio ducks out of the way, the DP. And he ducks down and because I got this visor on it's like wearing prescription glasses when you don’t have a prescription. You know, so I can't see so by the time he ducked down I thought I had killed him. And then like Claudio, are you alright? And then all I see is, you know, Claudio is still ducking and I see Justin come up like this.
JB: That's real 3D.
Hedlund: Yeah, yeah.
For the entire interview click
here.