When Jeff Bridges was shooting TRON back in 1981 he, of course, had no idea he'd be reprising his role as Kevin Flynn in a 2010 sequel. TRON: Legacy finds Bridges as Flynn stuck in the world of Tron, but there's hope for his rescue. His 27 year old son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), has discovered a signal originating from the old Flynn's Arcade and when he goes to investigate, he's pulled into the strange world where his dad's been trapped for 20 years.

At the Los Angeles press day for the Walt Disney Pictures sci-fi action film, Bridges talked about what it was like to have his younger self featured in TRON: Legacy, the advances in filmmaking technology since the original TRON broke new ground, and his career.

  On inserting a few 'Dude' moments in TRON: Legacy

Jeff Bridges: "Well, you know, in looking back at TRON - the original - since I’m playing that character and kind of referencing that guy, he would kind of say things like that. He was, I don't know if you would say Dude-esque because he preceded The Dude, but both [Steven] Lisberger and Joe Kosinski, our director, encouraged that kind of speak. That was Flynn, too. Flynn wasn’t a tight, typical silicon [valley] guy. He was pretty loose and hippy-ish himself."

Does playing the hero and the villain in the same scene mess with his Zen?

Jeff Bridges: "Pretty familiar, man. I always feel like I’m that in a way, so it didn’t mess with it too much. It was great to be able to include a wonderful friend of mine, Bernie Glassman who is a Zen master, in this whole process.

He was brought on board in some of the early writings to add some of that Zen quality to it."

"[Bernie and I] talked a lot about Flynn. He’s kind of trapped in the absolute reality. He’s discovered that the more he goes against Clu, the more powerful he becomes so he’s kind of retreated and gotten into the place of acceptance for the way it is to such a degree that it’s almost paralyzed him. It takes his son to shake him out of that. So in the early meetings, we had Bernie just kind of sitting at the table giving thoughts as the story progressed, from a Buddhist perspective. Very helpful."

On the technology used in creating both TRON films:

Jeff Bridges: "Oh, well, I was really drawn to both of them for the same reason, or one of the reasons was to take part in a movie that was using that cutting edge technology. Now what I was most curious about for this one is making a movie without cameras and this idea that everything is held in post, from the costume to your makeup to the set, even the camera angles, where the camera is. That was quite amazing."

On talking about the sequel 28 years after making the first TRON:

Jeff Bridges: "Yeah, I like that. I was able to do that with Texasville too, which was carrying on The Last Picture Show saga. I was just in Texas with Peter Bogdanovich and we’re hoping to do the next installment. Larry McMurtry’s written three more of those books and that would be wonderful."

"With this one, I think a lot of people who were kids, played video games when this first one came out. It kind of hit a sweet spot for those kids. Those guys who must be maybe [in their 30s or 40s], so it’s kind of like going to the movie kind of conjures up your own childhood again a little bit, where you left off and you remember how that one affected you. So maybe that’s kind of the reason for this thing you’re talking about."

Is he involved in gaming at all?

Jeff Bridges: "No. I mean, it’s so much different now. I think I left off, my last game was Myst. I did that with my girls, but that was a long time ago. I haven’t kept up. I haven’t experienced it."

On having his body digitized for use in the film:

Jeff Bridges: "It’s so fascinating. Yeah, there’s a bright side and a dark side. The bright side is that now I can play myself at any age. Normally, I love to go to the movies and when I see a character portrayed by different actors at different ages, it kind of pops a little bit for me. It brings me out of the movie experience. Now we have the technology to cure that. I could be whatever age I am; it’s amazing. The other thing is up for grabs. How that’s going to work just as far as the contracts, do you own your own image? But you’ve got to let it all go."

"I’ve been so fortunate and blessed. I can’t hold on. I’m just going to let that go, that concern. I could really get behind it a lot and be really upset about it, but it’s the same kind of task with this new technology I was telling you about. That kind of rubbed my acting fur against the grain because I like costumes and sets and it helps me create the illusion for myself that I’m actually in this reality in the world of the movie. To not have that, you really have to use that part of your imagination that you used when you were a kid, bringing it all up. So it was a challenge for me to get with the program as quickly as I could and not spend too much energy about it or bitching about it not being how I like it. Kind of letting that go."

On seeing his younger self onscreen:

Jeff Bridges: "Well, they modeled Clu I think after the Against All Odds period, and it’s not that strange for me to see myself in different stages of my life because I have movies and that sort of thing that I can look at. So it wasn’t that crazy. It was amazing that they could do it at all. What they’re doing was quite amazing."

On the costume design:

Jeff Bridges: "I’m very much into the costuming of any character that I portray. And it’s one of the great things about making movies is it’s a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about, for this instance, your character’s costume and what that might tell about your character. That’s one of the first things I do when I’m developing a character is meet with a costumer because they’ve got to build all the clothes."

On the 2010 Oscar season and 2011's Oscar chances:

Jeff Bridges: "Oh, yeah. Yeah, what a year. So wonderful. It’s affected me in a lot of ways, not so much getting a flood of scripts or something. That would be nice, or it sort of would be nice. I don’t like to read too many scripts, really. But the big thing, a couple of things, two things that come to mind that really affected me. One was the music, because Crazy Heart was all about music. It really set fire to my own music and after I leave you guys today, I’m going into the studio with T-Bone Burnett. We’re working on an album this week, and that’s really exciting."

"Then I guess it’s made me more famous. Fame, there’s a double-edged sword like probably everything else. The upside of that is you can put yourself in alignment with some concerns that you are concerned about and that you want to turn around. I just came back from Washington, D.C. where I was presenting the No Kid Hungry campaign that I’m the national spokesperson for. So that success that I had last year allows me to be more visible for helping end childhood hunger in our country, which is incredible."

"Just to throw you out some statistics for your papers and stuff, 17 million of our kids - that’s one in four in our country - live in food insecure homes. They don’t know if they’ll get enough nutrition to lead healthy, active lives. These statistics are from the Department of Agriculture. The good news is that we have programs in place like Food Stamps is now called SNAP, the WIC Program and the school meal programs, breakfast, after school and summer meals. But the shame is we’ve got the billion dollars of federally funded programs are out there available to all the states and it’s not being fully used. In other words, there’s like 19 million kids who are eligible for the school breakfast program, only half of those kids are taking part. This summer only 15%. So this No Kid Hungry program, campaign, which is nokidhungry.org by the way, is working with mayors and governors specifically zeroing in on where the blockage is. Why aren’t these communities using the money that’s available and strategically dealing with each of those problems. That’s a very exciting thing that’s happening that the awards and everything has helped promote that, so I’m happy about that."

On taking on the role of Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Brothers' True Grit:

Jeff Bridges: "Yeah, when the brothers first came to me, I was making TRON when they came to me on True Grit. I was curious. I said, 'Why do you want to make that movie?' I couldn’t figure that out. I couldn’t figure that out. It seemed like such an odd choice. We had talked about making a Western and stuff. I met them at a party and there was something about that, but why they would want to make that movie... Then they said, 'Well, we’re not really remaking that movie. We’re referring to the book by Charles Portis.' I wasn’t familiar with the book and they said, 'Oh, it’s a great book.'"

"So I read that and then I said, 'Oh, I see what you’re talking about,' because the book is very Coen-esque and great. I can’t wait... But also when they said that, it took a lot of concern about filling the Duke’s boots. At least don’t worry about that, so I never thought about John Wayne or anything like that until somebody asked me the question, 'How do you feel about this?' Oh, well, let me see. I’m not worried about it. I wasn’t thinking about it when I did it. I just did the best I could with the part. That’s what I always try to do."

* * * * *

TRON: Legacy hits theaters on December 17, 2010 and is rated PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and brief mild language.