Bruce Boxleitner Interview
Not many actors get the chance to revisit a role that they brought to life after nearly 30 years. Bruce Boxleitner played Alan Bradley in the original Tron, and was the only other actor besides Jeff Bridges to reprise his role for the sequel, 2010’s Tron: Legacy.
I had the opportunity to talk with Boxleitner about his work on Tron and Tron: Legacy during a conference call on Friday. He will be signing autographs at the D23 Expo on Saturday, August 20, along with other actors from Tron: Legacy.
That a sequel to Tron happened at all was a surprise to Boxleitner. Rumors had swirled for years that Tron was to either be remade or have a sequel. When Boxleitner found out that the project was in the works, he was “overjoyed”. Up until then, he’d dismissed the rumors because “I’m always trying to move forward”. But he was very proud of the original film and how nothing has been made like it.
To create the younger version of himself in the film, Boxleitner had to sit in a sphere that was “lit up like a UFO”. He continued, “They put all these sensors over me, all over my face. And I had dozens of little cameras capturing every move. I made faces, I was talking, they were capturing every bit of the musculature in my face”. His thoughts on the outcome? “I thought the final result looked pretty doggone good”. And, he laughed, “I had a great haircut”.
Boxleitner never set out to be an actor mostly remembered for science fiction, but he feels that the genre requires much more of his acting skills and imagination than other roles he’s had. He says that Babylon 5 “was the finest material I ever got to do as an actor”. And, “I loved doing Tron, I loved doing Tron: Legacy, and the future work in Tron: Uprising that I’m doing now”. (Tron: Uprising is an upcoming animated TV series that will be on the Disney XD network)
I asked Boxleitner what if it was difficult to revisit the role after nearly 30 years, and how it was to work with Jeff Bridges again. For Boxleitner, it felt like a lot less time. “It was hard to believe it had been 28, nearly 30 years. I think I’ve seen Jeff twice in that interim. But when Tron came along it was like ‘boom’, just sitting around back on the Disney lot, years and years and years ago”. He referenced back to the original question, “It wasn’t difficult at all. It was somewhere back there in my DNA, and I just called it back up again”. He likened his character Alan Bradley to Clark Kent, with Tron being Superman.
About the popular 80’s show Scarecrow and Mrs. King, he said that reprising the role would be something he’d think about if the opportunity arose. Questions he’s pondered include, “What’s happened since the cold war ended?”, and, “What happened to Lee and Amanda?”
Boxleitner enjoys meeting his fans, and will be all over the country and abroad over the next year for conventions. He will be signing from 11am – 1pm only on Saturday, August 20th at the D23 Expo. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, you can find them here!