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“I was being more flamboyant than any showgirl. He was giving it large, really, wasn’t he?” Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo: Douglas Curran/Walt Disney Pictures/Everett Collection

If there’s one person who completely understood the over-the-top assignment of Tron: Legacy, it was Michael Sheen.

By 2009, when the Welsh actor was cast as the nefarious program Castor in the much-hyped follow-up to the 1982 cult classic Tron, Sheen had pretty much already done it all. A massively experienced theater, film, and TV actor, Sheen was also game for the genre trenches, appearing in three Underworld films (as the wonderfully hot-headed werewolf leader Lucian) and the Twilight saga (as unsettling vampire ancient Aro). He knew how to go big, even in a project where elaborate fight scenes and wacky beings compete for our attention. The result was Tron: Legacy ’s most perfectly grandiose performance. Sheen struts around in iridescent makeup, high heels, a lit-up bodysuit, and a codpiece as a duplicitous nightclub owner flirting with human interloper Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) before betraying him. The neon-hued, gorgeously lit End of Line club is Castor’s playground in the virtual world of the Grid, and Sheen knew how to make the practical set and the character his own.

He high-steps, air-guitars, and sashays around as a program who abandoned his once-rebellious origins to survive the danger of the Grid. Looking back on the experience now, Sheen is thoughtful about why Tron: Legacy was divisive upon release. Reviews were mixed at the time: Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, noting its complicated narrative (“It also can’t be understood, but looks great”), while other critics were less kind to the de-aged CGI version of Jeff Bridges. (From Manohla Dargis at the New York Times: “Twice as much Jeff Bridges does not necessarily mean twice as much entertainment — bummer.”) But in the years since, as Disney has churned out countless would-be blockbusters with far less distinct visuals and barely a fraction of Tron: Legacy ’s bombastic flair, fans have embraced the film as the kind of wild-swing sequel that doesn’t really get made anymore. (The film was recently released as a 4K steelbook, and will play in theaters for one night only on October 8.) Sheen wasn’t entirely surprised by the divided reaction then, pointing out that even the first Tron took a while to find its footing — and when it did, it became a cult classic with undeniable influence on the sci-fi genre. Fifteen years later, the follow-up to Legacy, Tron: Ares, opens in theaters on October 10. Unfortunately, Sheen isn’t in it. But you bet he’s got an idea for what Castor would be up to if the character, and his nightclub, had made it out of Legacy intact.

When I say Tron: Legacy to you, is there a first thought or memory that comes to mind?
The first Tron was a big film for me when I was growing up. To be part of the Tron world was just thrilling. Playing the video game with Jeff Bridges one day, hearing him tell me stories about when they were making the first film. Probably the thing that I have told people the most about is having lunch with Daft Punk without their helmets. That was pretty great. The costume I wore was incredibly uncomfortable but also kind of amazing. We all pretty much had to be sewn into these outfits. Once you’re in them — certainly mine, anyway — you couldn’t sit down. They had to get us these special, like, the thing that Hannibal Lecter is rolled around on. When you wanted to rest on set, you had to lean against these things that you got sort of strapped to. That tells you what the costume was like. It had electricity running through it, it was able to light up, it had all these wires. And poor Garrett, I remember during the fight scenes, he got constantly electrocuted. His body was burnt because he was sweating from doing the fight scenes, and this thing was just electrifying him.

You’d already done some genre and franchise work — Underworld, Twilight. How did Tron: Legacy compare to those other franchises? Did it feel smaller, did it feel bigger?
It felt bigger. The Underworld films were on a much lower budget. The first film we shot, it was pretty grotty where we were filming — Budapest is lovely, but we were filming in some pretty horrible, dank locations in order to make it work for the film. It didn’t feel like you were on some big, glamorous film. And I’d only done one of the Twilight films at that point, and it didn’t feel like a huge film, even though there was the whole Twilight phenomenon. I remember there being one moment on Tron where we were rehearsing something in the club. It was when Garrett first comes to meet me, and we were on the set, me and Joe Kosinski and Garrett, chatting away. I had this cane thing, and I remember almost half-jokingly saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if, as I walked up the steps, if I put my cane down, just tapped it on the floor, and it just stayed there?” Literally about five minutes later, someone comes up and goes, “That’s been sorted out for you now. There’s been a magnet fitted under the floor and a magnet in your cane. If you just put your cane there, it’ll stay there.” And I was like, “Yeah, no, this is a different kind of movie.” [Laughs.] Even when I first met with Joe to talk through the concepts — I went into the studio in L.A. and he showed me in a screening room some conceptual stuff that had already been made, and he was telling me about the character and all that. I hadn’t done that before. Normally you just get an e-mail or, if you’re lucky, a chat over lunch somewhere. This seemed like a much bigger deal — and for a film that I needn’t be sold at all. If someone just said “ Tron,” I was there.

Tell me about developing Castor and the rebel leader he once was, Zuse.
When Joe showed me an idea of the character, it didn’t look anything like what I ended up looking like. He’s a sort of emcee character, a circus ringmaster. He’s larger than life, and a double character as well. I remember talking with Joe about someone who can shape-shift and change character and take on different personas. Castor is a program, and I thought of him as being a popular-culture mashup program that churns out all these different things. That led me to David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, and Bowie being a chameleon, and a bit of Chaplin. At one point, I did a bit from Beverly Hills Cop, Bronson Pinchot’s “I make it myself.” It’s fun to think, Maybe someone will get this. I do another bit that’s completely David Bowie from “Drive‐In Saturday,” where he goes, “Drinks for everybody!” I was being more flamboyant than any showgirl. He was giving it large, really, wasn’t he?

Do you remember how much time there was between you meeting with Joe and then starting work on the film?
I remember it was a case of me going, “I’ll do it.” It was pretty quick that I knew I was onboard with it. Then we had the first costume fittings, and that was when they were like, “It’s going to be uncomfortable, and you’re probably going to have to wear some kind of corset. It’s not something that has buttons or zips. We have to sew it on to you at the beginning of the day and then cut you out of it at the end of the day” — like you’ve been in a car accident.

There was a codpiece, right?
Oh yes, there were codpieces, and contact lenses. I had to go and be fitted for these contact lenses. I had contact lenses for the Twilight movies, and I’d also had them for Underworld. The ones on Underworld were horrific. They had to be almost half my entire eyeball at one point. When we came to do Twilight, they were better. Still, they made everything look sort of pink, and I had to constantly be having drops. Coming to Tron, I was like, “Oh God, not contact lenses again.” But actually, those ones were pretty easy. They were just to make my eye look like a hexagon, and they weren’t bad at all.

We have to talk about your first scene in the film as Castor. It’s inside the character’s End of Line club, where Daft Punk is playing. What do you remember about filming that?
Your first scene of a film, you learn a lot. It’s like that Mike Tyson quote, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The first time you’re in the outfit and you’re in character on the set with the other actors, you learn so much. You can’t really know what that character is like, what they really sound like, what they really move like, what it really feels like to be there and how they interact, until you’re doing it. I had the set. Whenever you walk onto a soundstage and there’s a big set, I don’t care whether you’ve been acting for years and years and years, it’s always a thrill to go, “Wow, welcome to Hollywood.” It looked incredible. Garrett and Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde were having to spend a lot of time doing stuff against a green screen and pretending you could see things, whereas I had the full thing. Daft Punk were there, actually playing music, DJ-ing music in the club, for real.

This was a club, my club. I have to dominate it. But it’s your first day. It’s a big film. There’s a lot on your shoulders, and you haven’t really done it yet, so you’re nervous. When you do a scene with a lot of extras, it’s more like a theater scene because everyone’s kind of watching it. They’re in the scene, but it is like having a big audience, and it ups everything, the adrenaline rush. You’ve got to be careful not to tire yourself out too soon. I knew I had to be big and really perform at a high level all day, in a very uncomfortable outfit, so you’ve got to be careful because it can really push you. The kind of character he was allowed me to really go for it. When you take a big swing like that, the danger is that it doesn’t work. But when we weren’t in character, Garrett would laugh at me, and not in a mean way — like he was enjoying what I was doing. That gave me a lot of confidence. I don’t think Garrett ever knew how nervous I was, and how unsure. Him enjoying what I was doing really made a difference.

There’s also this very funny moment where you call him “pretty miss,” and I remember thinking while rewatching, “Is Castor flirting?”
Absolutely. I had license because of this duality of the character. Because he was actually someone else, with his mask, I could sort of do anything I wanted, go as far as I wanted, because it’s all to distract from the fact that he’s this other person. Picking up on the Bowie thing, and is he straight, is he gay, it was just really interesting. I think I just made that up myself. I don’t think that was in the script, “pretty miss.” And again, Garrett got a kick out of that.

Now I have to ask about literal kicks. You’re almost doing choreography as this character — slides across the club floor, doing air guitar with your walking stick, those high kicks. How much of that did you figure out on your own?
That’s all me. It’s the Chaplin thing, it’s classic Hollywood. The slide thing, that’s a move from West Side Story. The high kicks and using the cane as a gun, during that, I shout in a sort of German accent, and that is from the original conversation with Joseph where he said Castor was like an emcee. I thought about the emcee in Cabaret, and so there’s a moment where I totally just do Joel Grey. The high kick is like a goose step, a little bit, and a showgirl; it starts to go a bit fashy at the end. Joe basically said to me, “Maybe you start dancing to the music. The music’s getting crazier and you’re pumping up the music when the fight’s going. It’s almost like you’re emceeing the fight and getting off on it.” I remember when we did the take, there was nothing else happening. It was just me. It seemed like I was there forever, going further and further and doing more and getting more extreme, and trying to think of every single possible thing I could do with that cane. It was all just made-up, really. I’m amazed that I could do it in that costume. Thinking about it now, I’m amazed it didn’t all just rip and fall off, become a different sort of movie. I sort of didn’t ever want to see the costume again.

We must discuss the Daft Punk of it all. What do you remember about working with them?
It was thrilling. I was a big fan of Daft Punk, and when Joe told me they were going to do the music, I was so excited. I didn’t think I was going to meet them, necessarily. I thought, Perhaps I’ll meet them at the premiere.They’ll shoot separately somewhere. They’re probably not even going to be in Vancouver. But they were there! That’s what’s so mad — and yet it looks like it was done as a sort of insert. They were live DJ-ing the music, they were on set acting and being the characters. It gets to lunchtime, and you know, they don’t walk around with their helmets on all the time. But again, I thought, They won’t just be around as themselves. And lo and behold, there I was, sitting at a table on one of those weird catering buses in the middle of a car park, with the two of them. They’re just two French dudes who are very cool. We were sitting and chatting. I had to sort of keep pinching myself, really. You got to pretend, I have lunch with people like Daft Punk every day. The soundtrack is something I listen to still.

This movie had a mixed critical reception at the time but has gone on to become a cult classic. Have you felt this reassessment of the movie as the years have passed?
When I watched the first film, I was 10 or 11. I remember my uncle taking me. I remember which cinema it was. I’d always assumed that it had been a big hit — well, the first film wasn’t a big hit, either. People didn’t really think that much of it, it was too weird, and then slowly over time, it was seen differently and became massively influential. With Tron: Legacy, a bit of me was like, The same thing might happen, and I suppose it did. I thought it was fantastic. I remember thinking that maybe some of the CG stuff, people might pick that apart a little bit, because it was still very early days of making people look younger. That was a big risk, and I remember thinking, That probably doesn’t quite work. But in terms of the overall thing, it’s right up my street, and because of that, it’s probably not going to be for everyone. I wasn’t massively surprised that it divided people. In terms of how it has changed over time, I hope people have come to see it in a more positive light. People will say to me occasionally, “I love Tron: Legacy.” There’s always one.

I do think it has been reassessed as a film that was really visually distinct.
Joe as a director has changed over time. But at that time, I think his aesthetic had a kind of a coolness to it, and I don’t mean just as in, “Wow, that’s cool, man.” There was something clinical about it that I really liked, and I thought worked really well for this. Like what Daft Punk did with the music — it was rousing and dramatic, but it was also kind of glacial. And the way things glide through the world of Tron, there is something slightly frightening about it, and alien. I thought Joseph, as a director at the time, really got that. Certainly at the time, that maybe wasn’t going to make it the most commercial. But it’s what I hope allows people to go, “That is a really terrific piece of work.” There’s a bit of Kubrick in there.

Castor is implied to die at the end of Tron: Legacy when his nightclub gets blown up, but I’m curious if you had a dream scenario in which you would find Castor in Tron: Ares.
I remember at the time, they were talking about, “Hopefully, there’ll be more,” and I was sad, because I wouldn’t be able to be in anymore. And they were like, “They’re programs, and we don’t see you actually die. You could have had somewhere that you slipped out of.” Over time, as I started to hear that there was going to be another film, I was like, “Well, I haven’t had a phone call.” They’re going a different way, which is fine. It will be lovely to be able to go to the new one and not know anything about it. But the great thing is that I developed a character that is a chameleon and a shape-shifter. He could be anything, he could pop up as anything. I like the idea that he has had to go into hiding and is now working as a digital showgirl, in some kind of slightly sleazy bar in a darkened part of the Tron universe. He’s a torch singer, a nightclub act — in full drag.

Was there anything you took from the Tron: Legacy set?
I don’t think I did. I don’t do that very often. Just memories. I’ve got my Castor action figure. That was quite thrilling. And Jason Sudeikis had a Tron: Legacy pinball machine. He collects pinball machines, and he showed me the pinball machine that he had of Tron: Legacy. He said to me, “I was rolling ball bearings over your head this morning.”