Gillian Anderson on her role in Tron: Ares, and her concerns around the rise of AI
Gillian Anderson at the premiere of Tron: Ares in Hollywood recently. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images)
The development of AI is a big theme in the new the latest chapter in the series that explores what it means to be human when the digital and real worlds collide.
In the film, a highly sophisticated digital programme, Ares (Jared Leto), is sent into the real world on a mission which marks humankind’s most high-stakes encounter with artificial intelligence.
Recently, AI actress Tilly Norwood has been unveiled to the world in a presentation that’s made her the talk of Tinseltown and shaken up Hollywood. What does Tron star Gillian Anderson make of it all?
“I’m excited by what AI has done and seems to continue to be doing in the worlds of science and medicine and also, helping many people on many levels,” she says. “I'm also nervous about it, just in terms of safety, and hope that at some point the grown ups in the conversation have serious conversations about regulations and safeguarding.
“I have not seen any visuals of Tilly yet so I can't really comment. I mean, I've got no control over it. I have to hope and imagine that there'll still be a desire for human beings as actors, and if not, then I'll find something else to do.”
It’s unlikely that Anderson will have to find something else to do anytime soon. More than three decades after she became a screen icon as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the actress has enjoyed a busy and varied career. As well as that multiple-award-winning show, she shone as a socialite in starred opposite our own Jamie Dornan in hit crime series played a sex therapist in and took on the role of formidable British leader Margaret Thatcher in Netflix series
In she joins a starry cast including Leto, actress Greta Lee and Evan Peters in the third instalment in the film series. She plays Elisabeth Dillinger, part of the powerful business family behind the Tron programme, who is wary of passing the business over to her impetuous son, Julian (Peters).
The two wrestle with greater forces in the film, which brings the groundbreaking special effects and memorable scores (in this instance from Nine Inch Nails) that the films are known for. But there are proper movie sets among all the grid-based sci-fi action.
“When working on anything to do with CGI, it's always helpful to be able to see pictures, at the very least, of what will be laid in afterwards,” says Anderson. “It was a bit daunting to show up on the first day of work and be doing a scene in the equivalent of an airplane hangar-sized set where we were just two tiny little characters way down at the end, not being able to see what was beyond us or some of what was behind us.
“But by the same token, the office, which had been my office, and is now my son's office, because he's running the company, was a practical set and we could see everything that was in there. It felt very futuristic, but operational.”
Anderson and Peters work well off each other as the wary matriarch and her power-hungry son, in what is the latest line in the series’ well-known Dillinger family. Having admired the first two films, it was exciting for Anderson and Peters to introduce the next Dillinger, Julian - a computer programmer who is singularly focused on pushing technology to the brink to establish his own legacy.
“It was really, in my mind, a two-hander,” says the actor of his role opposite Anderson. “Gillian brings such a sophistication to it and a groundedness in that dynamic and the pressure of Julian's need to seek his mother's approval.
“Tonally, it's just incredibly fun. When you watch the film, it really moves. There's a ton of chase sequences. The soundtrack is phenomenal. It really is a ride that you go on. I think the challenge and the fun of it was trying to rise to the legacy that is Tron. Thousands of people are working on these visual effects shots, and it's very exciting.”
It was a joy, agrees Anderson, to be a part of the latest visual and technical effects that have always been a part of the films. “I don't know, actually, if I've ever been a part of such a big franchise. I've been on sci-fi sets. I've been on features that have a lot of money, big budgets. And I don't think I've ever been on something that is so big and had such a big budget, and where part of the whole modus operandi was to deliver the best of the best of the latest. It was exciting to be there and to see some of the practical sets that they had built.”
In preparation, both actors discussed how they could make the most of the tricky and testy family dynamic, making contact at the early stages before filming began. “We had a two hour conversation, a phone call beforehand, which was the extent of what we were able to manage,” says Anderson, adding that it helped form the basis of the mother-son relationship.
“We did our own work in our own time to fill in the gaps. That's kind of what you do as an actor - very often you don't have an opportunity to meet people that you're married to for 30 years. The amount of times that I have shot something and shown up and had the divorce scene on the first day of filming, or the death scene. You have to come prepared for any eventuality.”
Anderson played one of the most iconic characters in sci-fi history, her Scully becoming a hit, along with David Duchovny's Mulder, almost as soon as first came to our screens in 1993. The show ran for nine seasons and over 200 episodes, returning for two revivals and two spin-off films. It comes as no surprise, perhaps, to learn that as much as the show changed her life, she doesn’t miss playing Scully.
“I think in part, that's because I played her for so long, and also went back to revisit her as a character. I feel like, on the whole, I've said all that needs to be said about her. I'm not sure that I have anything left to add to that conversation.”
- is in cinemas from Friday, October 10
