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FilmEdge.net's Exclusive Interview with TRON star Cindy Morgan

March 14 2010 — Earlier this week, FilmEdge got the opportunity to talk with actress Cindy Morgan, star of two perennial fan-favorite films, CADDYSHACK and Disney's TRON.  We enjoyed talking with Cindy about her upcoming book projects, the fan campaigns lobbying for Yori to return in the TRON LEGACY era of the franchise, and speculated on just how that might happen.  Her inviting sense of humor and continued support of her enduring, popular films and their fans prove that Cindy Morgan's still got plenty of game!  Our interview begins with her newest project on the verge of publication.

FE: Let’s start with one of your new projects, describe your book From Catholic School to Caddyshack.

CM: This first book coming out is actually going to be an extraordinary CADDYSHACK coffee table book because I’ve got the pictures and the 30th anniversary is this summer. I literally have hundreds of photos behind the scenes and taken in a very loving way to tell the story of what it was like to be dropped into that situation. The 30th anniversary is roughly June and I’m going to try to hit that deadline. I’ve got folks helping me all over the place, I’m not sure what I should call them — little angels, Cindy’s angels — all over the country helping me with different parts of different things I’m doing. Hopefully the coffee table book, photo and text-driven, will be out by June, followed right on the heels of that with an autobiography — also called From Catholic School to Caddyshack I’m guessing.

FE: Tell us a bit about the adventures of young Cynthia Ann Cichorski growing up in Chicago and what exactly did she survive in catholic school?

CM: Sister Francis, my first grade teacher, is still alive and we chatted a little while ago because she wants to know about this book. She’s now Sister Kate, she’s now taken her own name. So I said, Kate, the way I look at it is that catholic school is like Hogan’s Heroes: at least we had a chance against the guards, and she started laughing. I said the problem was you never should have taught us Latin. Did you know we were telling each other jokes in Latin when we were seven years old? And she said no. I said you shouldn’t have done that, we were little kids, we had little songs, we were having a good old time. Because there were a lot of masses and prayers, so to keep our heads from exploding we developed a sense of humor.

I was discussing with Sister Francis our first confession which she also remembers. I said that was a terrifying experience for us seven-year-olds, and what the heck happened when Eddie Shapiro was yanked out of the confessional? See we couldn’t think of sins, really good sins you know, we were seven. You want to come up with something to say, you don’t want to go in and have nothing. So maybe I yelled at my brother — no I didn’t really yell at my brother, maybe I could yell at him now? Oh, maybe I’m lying about yelling at my brother? So I’m trying to concoct some sin so I can walk in there and do something. But Eddie Shapiro, he was ahead of all of us. Out of the blue, Father Frank opens the door, which you’re not supposed to do, goes into Eddie Shapiro’s booth, yanks him out and we’re like oh my God! Well apparently Eddie Shapiro went in and told Father Frank he killed his brother! He was way ahead of all of us!

Sister Francis remembered and explained it from her point of view: trying to tell a seven-year-old the difference, if you’re Catholic, between a mortal sin and a venial sin — a mortal sin being adultery or murder. I guess she didn’t want to go the adultery route, so she talked about murder and Eddie picked up on it!

FE: On the other hand, that makes lying about killing your brother look like small potatoes.

CM: Yes! So after that we were all terrified of going into that little dark booth, I’ve got to be honest with you.

FE: Speaking of your early years, you’ve said since you’re quite a sci-fi fan, you’re all over the internet. Were you the nerdy girl back then even though we didn’t have computers?

CM: Yes! We didn’t even have pencils back then, they gave us a piece of rock. No, there were no computers back then, but I was a nerdy girl. I’m glad someone believes me because it’s true. I was fixed up with cousins for both of my high school proms. There was no dating! There was a boys school next door. And this is the truth: out of the 330 girls in our graduating class, they gave us a test going into high school and the top ten percent of the girls were put together for four years, graded on a bell curve of all things, which is really not fair when you think about it. Two years of French, two years of Latin — again, they shouldn’t have been teaching us Latin because the things we could get away with, they should have known better. But they kept us together for four years so I was completely the nerdy girl.

I was accepted to the Illinois Institute of Technology because I wanted to be an engineer. My father was a plant manager and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I went to the open house and there were four young women and then all guys. I froze in my tracks because I still had a stutter coming out of high school and I just could not have managed that. So I opted for Northern Illinois University which is a Liberal Arts college, and went completely another way. For one of my first classes they put me into a speech class, and I was a terrible speaker but a good writer. I had my nose in my script, I was reading my stuff, and for whatever reason the class thought what I was writing was hilarious. For the first time in my life the professor called me over and said, “You know, you should think about getting into Communications.” Which lead me into broadcasting, and because I was doing morning drive in Chicago — operating my own board, by the way, FCC-licensed sound engineer turning on the tower at the Hancock Center, making $135 a week — I wanted to do commercials but nobody would let me on camera to do commercials. They said, no, you’re the radio person. So I said the heck with you guys, I’m going to LA. They said, you’ll never get a job. I was so cocky back then, I said I’ll have a billboard on Sunset in a year. And I had one in eight months! I just got really lucky.

FE: You said you had a stutter and yet you were working in radio.

CM: Because at that point I got into Communications. Communications, when I went to school, was a combination of several concepts: radio and television was one element, speech writing was one element, and the science of speaking was another. By getting into this I conquered the stutter and at that point was so fascinated by what scared me, I just went right through it. Anything that made me afraid, I attacked. And I ended up in broadcasting, of all things, because of that.

FE: Was getting into radio your pathway of expanding into show business, was that the plan all along?

CM: There was never a plan! (Laughs) I got into radio because I liked it, it was fun. I went from being afraid to speaking to really having a good time, it was so cool that I was getting paid for it. I had three jobs at one point while I was in college: I worked at the student television station running camera and the student radio station, but I also had a job at the commercial station in town. It’s one thing to have a degree, that’s very, very important, but it’s another thing to get commercial experience and have a resume that you can actually put forward to another city.

That’s where I ended up changing my name because they said all right we’ll put you on the air tonight at the commercial station, WLBK in Dekalb, Illinois. But they said we don’t want people to think it’s the same person on-air in both places, so you need to have another name. Growing up very shy, I read a story about Morgan Le Fay in King Arthur’s court who seemed like she could become anything she wanted to. What a metaphor for transitioning into a person who’s not afraid and who doesn’t stutter. So I became Cindy Morgan. I was Cindy Cichorski in one place and Cindy Morgan in another. When I graduated, I sent out identical resumes with pictures: first I sent out Cindy Cichorski and nobody bit, then I sent out Cindy Morgan and she got the job. So Cindy Morgan went to work.

FE: So your commercial work lasted how long before you got CADDYSHACK, which was I believe your first big break?

CM: Yes, I got an Irish Spring commercial and that paid the bills until CADDYSHACK.

FE: Did that break come from the popularity of your commercials?

CM: Not at all. That came out of me hanging out with some friends at Le Dome restaurant and I was approached by a so-called producer who said we’re going to put you in such-and-such a film. I sized him up and said yeah, sure you are. He said I’m going to call your commercial agent. I went home and thought this guy’s blowing smoke. But if my commercial agent gets a call and I can’t do this film because just by talking to this guy it was something I couldn’t do, I know my commercial agent will get frustrated enough to introduce me to a theatrical agent. That happened exactly: he got the call, I got the script, it wasn’t something I could do, he got frustrated and sent me to a theatrical agent and that’s the agent who gave me the script for CADDYSHACK.

I remember reading it while I was laying on Venice Beach and thought, well this is interesting. I don’t know any of these people but what an interesting script. Again, it’s a case of were I to be this person, wow, what would I do? I had nothing to lose because I was so not Lacey. I was fearless because I wasn’t going in expecting to get this job. I never thought I’d get this job. The only time I got nervous is when I went back for the final audition, I’m looking around and there’s no one else reading for the role of Lacey. I went, oh jeez, these guys are taking this seriously, what am I going to do?! They really think I can do this. I remember starting to panic so I walked out into the parking lot and I remember thinking just focus on one thing: if it’s a guy I’m reading with, if I can make him sweat, just look at him and make him sweat, I’ve got the job. Just think about that and nothing else. And that’s what I did. The guy was Doug Kenney, I made him sweat and I got the job.

FE: You said you had nothing in common with Lacey —

CM: Oh, I think there might be a little of a crossover there.

FE: — was that the attraction for you?

CM: Lacey was this carnivorous female, a femme fatale of biblical proportions, certainly nobody I’d even met. Just very much larger than life. But it just became fun. Actually I evolved into Lacey shortly after I arrived on the set because a couple of times there were a couple of people who wanted to lock horns with me on things they shouldn’t have. The nude scene, bless their little hearts, came up as the second scene they had me shoot. But I had agreed to do it, it was explained to me about the R-rating and I understood. Then I got a call from one of the producers the night before saying he was sending a photographer from Playboy down to shoot this. I said thank you for the compliment but I can’t do it. It’s nothing against Playboy but I’m the Irish Spring girl and I can’t do that, it’s a huge conflict with a major company. And in my heart I knew my father would drop dead.

I also knew from the little editing experience I had that they’d never get a decent still from that film. I called my agent back in LA and I said help me. And his exact words were, “Honey, you’re not a doe-eyed girl from the Midwest. Handle it.” So I hung up, came back and fired him, but in the meantime I had to face off with this photographer and he wasn’t a problem because I simply read my contract and it said I wasn’t obligated. Twenty seconds on a screen, it’s barely remembered. But on a coffee table, before the internet, with my name under it, that’s a different thing. And at that point in time I just didn’t want to do it. Oddly enough, Playboy met with me recently and said would you do it now? I said I don’t know yes or no, but for the same reason I wouldn’t do it thirty years ago, I would consider it now because nobody tells a woman when and where and how.

So anyhow, I had to go back to the set. The producer called me between takes, he threatened me, he took away my paid ads, he broke my contract which nobody protected me on. My original billing was ‘And introducing Cindy Morgan as Lacey Underall’ — he took that away, he took away my ads, he erased me off everything in the newspapers, the commercials for it. He basically erased me from everything. He said let that photographer on the set or you’re done in this business. I said so be it but now I’m clearing the set. I put on a robe and I found people under the bed and behind the curtains. I said you guys do what you want, I’ve got all day. But until I see that cinematographer, that director, that actor and no one else here, you’re not getting the shot off, take your time. I heard one of the crew members call me Bathsheba, whatever the heck that means. But I remember the hairdresser, a wonderful woman — she was the one that showed me my contract — she just blocked [the photographer] with her body. I saw the dailies, the assistant to the editor brought me into the room and said I want you to see this. These are the dailies I really wish I had because from the waist up, you know what I was wearing, I looked at the camera and I said, “I will not work until that man puts his camera down.” And I heard “Speed, roll, action” and I turned around and did the scene. That was the most powerful scene I did in the whole thing and it will never see the light of day.

But what happened was they made me mad, and when you’re mad, are you scared anymore? No, they turned me into Lacey right away. I grabbed a hold of Michael O’Keefe and the scene went from ‘Lacey makes love with Danny’ to ‘Lacey makes love to Danny’!

FE: So less acting on his part then?

CM: Yeah, he just had to lay there, I didn’t care anymore. I was mad. And then the sound guy tried to sneak into the set and I said, “Listen, pal, I’ve got an FCC license, get out of here. Set up your boom mic and take a walk.” And luckily after that point, Lacey Underall was walking around the set. And they thought I was Lacey. I walked past the pool, they believed it. I thought all right, at least they’ll back off a bit and let me do my job in peace, for the most part — not completely but for the most part.

FE: Not to give away your book, but you’re working with Rodney, with Chevy and Ted Knight, tell us one of your funniest stories about your experience on CADDYSHACK.

CM: Every single person there I have wonderful stories about. When I did TRON, it was very structured and by the book. But when I did CADDYSHACK, this was completely the antithesis. It got to the point where it was so improvised, we were in the hotel and I would just roll out of bed, go to makeup and say, okay, what today? (Laughs) There was no point to looking at a script or a call sheet because you just walked in and showed up. In the piano scene, for example: I was getting my makeup touched up in a very hot house and it was supposed to be a love scene. Well those aren’t much fun to begin with, let alone in the Florida heat in September with those Klieg lights on, blasting it up to well over 100 degrees. Harold Ramis, the director, came over and said sit down for a minute. Harold was great for whispering little suggestions in your ear. He said tell Chevy to sing you a love song. So I went back and said sing me a love song. He breaks into “I was born to love you...” Now watch my eyes when you see that scene again: I’m looking at him, and I look at him snort the salt, and I look up out of the corner of my eye and I see the damned camera light’s on. They’re shooting this thing and it’s the scene in the movie! You can see me register the thought, all right, aw jeez you jokers! I had a big wad of gum in my mouth and I blew a bubble in his face and that was it. I thought, okay, I’ll play along.

FE: You can see the same thing when Chevy’s giving you the massage —

CM: And he’s spilling oil down my back, oh yeah!

FE: You can tell you literally don’t know what’s going to happen, but it plays very real in the scene.

CM: It is very real! (Laughs)

FE: But there are lesser actors who would fall out of the scene and totally blow it instead of going with that moment. They would ruin it.

CM: Oh no, you have to. You absolutely have to go with it.

FE: But that improvisation doesn’t automatically play well in the scene by itself. You made it play well in the scene because you’re a talented actress.

CM: Well, thank you. My best work was when I was reacting to what the guys were doing. I had a few months of instruction from Harvey Lembeck who was a great comedy improvisation teacher. He would yell at me and say, “Morgan, stop right there! Quit going for the joke!” I was a disc jockey, I always went for the joke. But he said, “You’re the straight. You score when the joke happens around you.” And thank God for Harvey for teaching me when to be the straight because at that point, I’m the audience’s point of view. We’re all looking at this going, oh my God, what’s he doing?

FE: You’re almost the anchor of reality in that scene.

CM: There had to be one someplace! (Laughs) And as you see, that’s what happened to Ted Knight when he was working with Rodney. Ted Knight was normally the funny guy yet he found himself playing straight guy to Rodney, and Ted was really getting mad by the end of filming. He wasn’t playing angry, he was being angry.

FE: Yet he’s so incredibly funny. It’s the flipside of being the straight man, taking everything so seriously, he’s just hilarious in that role.

CM: Yes!

FE: I heard it was also difficult for Rodney because, coming from stand up, he’s expecting to get feedback. Yet the crew is sitting there silent while he’s playing a scene and he thinks he’s doing terribly, not knowing they can’t laugh at him because they’re filming.

CM: Absolutely. This is a story I can tell: you know we grabbed lunch wherever you could because we’d be shooting all day. I was having lunch, Rodney sat down and there he was, tugging on his collar and sweating, going “Am I okay? Am I okay? This is my first movie.” And I said, Rodney, you’re stealing the thing! And he was.

FE: Did you golf back then, do you golf now or do you still prefer skinny skiing?

CM: (Laughs) I do appearances at golf tournaments, I have learned to golf and I actually have a golf trophy. But when people bring me to the golf tournaments, it’s clearly not for my game. The golfers really want to meet Lacey and it’s really funny. You can see these guys approaching, you see them talking to each other and they’re saying, “Yeah, when I talk to her I’m going to say this.” But as they get closer and closer, they slowly become the teenager they were when they first saw CADDYSHACK. I can see the transformation right in front of my eyes. When they finally get up to me it’s, “Hi, Lacey... (Laughs) How are you?” “Pretty good, how are you?” (Laughs) Until maybe the back nine when they start drinking beers, then it’s a different story. But until then it’s so sweet and very, very charming.

FE: You said your experience on TRON was so different, and I know the transition wasn’t direct, but did TRON come completely out of nowhere for you?

CM: It seemed like it was out of nowhere. I didn’t work for a long time after CADDYSHACK, that producer made good on his threat. I didn’t work for about a year and a half. I got this call from Disney, and I went in to read with Jeff Bridges. There I was, they put me on film and I got the job. Much later I ran into some guy I’d been dating previous to CADDYSHACK, he was also in one of Harvey Lembeck’s classes. He’d gotten a job in some cartoon he was telling me about, and we all went to lunch with the director and producers and I didn’t think much about it. A year and a half later I got called into TRON, his character was out and my character was in — and he is now speaking to me again. (Laughs) He’s a really good guy. But that’s how I got TRON, sitting at that lunch.

FE: One of the things I’m still processing with the new film coming out is looking back at TRON and realizing just how far ahead of its time it was. The phrase “virtual reality” didn’t even exist for Steven Lisberger to pitch the film. How did he explain the film to you given where we were in 1981-1982 with no concept of what was about to come with computers?

CM: Luckily I had some technical background, I ran my own sound board in radio. In fact, when I’m running the Solar Sailer, there was nothing there. It was a completely black warehouse, there was a black riser in the middle and on top of that was basically a banquet table covered in black felt. And Lisberger said, “Okay, you’re up there, you’re on the Solar Sailer, you’re crossing the Game Sea — go!” I said, that’s it, I’ve got to ask you, what the heck are you talking about here? He showed me the Syd Mead graphics and I said, you want me to fly this ship? Okay, I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, Steven, but there’s no ship here. There’s nothing here but a table. He said, “Whatever you do, the Disney artists will put in the ship underneath you.” So I flew the Solar Sailer exactly as if I was running a sound board.

When he was explaining the concept of being in the other world, Steven was pretty good at explaining it conceptually: if you create something, does it have a life of its own? Does it have a two-dimensional version of you somehow embedded in it? I viewed Yori as a two-dimensional version of Lora. Yori was everything Lora was but more childlike with fragments of memories. So when she first saw Flynn, there was a recognition but she didn’t know why, and an attraction which was confusing.

When I did the press junket for TRON, I would explain the concept to people by telling them to remember the WIZARD OF OZ: how Dorothy was in one world and it was black and white, then she went into the other and it was color, and there were all these people she kind of knew from her other world. That was all I had to compare it to in 1982. But now it makes a lot more sense, that it’s two-dimensional and it has fragments of your memories. I think it’s a cool concept to think that when you create something, it has fragments of you embedded in it.

FE: That’s one of the subtle elements of the film that was decades ahead of its time. Not only can you understand it conceptually now, but you make avatars of yourself online, people seem a little different on Facebook or Twitter than they are in real life. People are living it now. It’s amazing how that came of out one film relatively so long ago before computers became popular and before people knew what was going on today. People had heard about video games and that was it.

CM: But it was very easy for me imagining Cindy Morgan having been Cindy Cichorski. I understood the idea of a transition, that there were two — Cindy Cichorski was more Lora. In fact I walked in one day with my glasses — I’m legally blind without them — my eyes were tired. Steven saw them and said I like those, they look good. Probably because if people saw them, they assumed my IQ jacked up about twenty points. So they made stunt glasses for me to wear.

FE: After working on that black felt table, even having seen the concept art for TRON, did the final film look anything like what you had imagined?

CM: Absolutely not. At the end of the film when Barnard Hughes, Bruce Boxleitner and I look across the Tron universe, and Barnard waves his hand and the Tron universe becomes alive again, do you know what we were looking at? We were about a foot and a half away from the corner of a black landscape. Nothing! And we were right up against it.

The only things that held the same were our relationships. Thank God I was working with wonderful actors. I found the reality in their eyes. That’s what was real for me and that held true when I saw TRON on the screen.

FE: For that to work, I assume all your co-stars brought that same reality to the game or it wouldn’t work? That’s what makes it believable.

CM: When David Warner told me I was going to die, no acting was required, I believed him!

FE: So when he’s yelling at you in the holding cell and he flares up bright red, that wasn’t an effect, he’s just a good actor?

CM: I think he did to that. I don’t think it was a visual effect at all. He did that and they just left it in. (Laughs)

FE: Did those tight program costumes help you treat each other differently as characters in the TRON world than you did shooting at Livermore Labs, let’s say?

CM: In Livermore Labs, we were running around in sneakers and jeans, and it was much more comfortable, yeah. It had more of a casual, everyday feel. It is true that when one puts on a costume, and the makeup and the gear, you do get into the character much more easily. There was a bit of an androgynous thing about those costumes. Clearly Yori was ‘built’, shall we say, but other than that it felt androgynous. It felt slightly dehumanized, we were less human than our counterparts in the real world.

FE: That’s interesting. Early in the film, Jeff Bridges’ computer character Clu spoke very mechanically, yet just before he gets derezzed, he sounds a lot more like Flynn: less program and more human. How much of that transition between characters was Jeff Bridges being playful, ingenious and sneaky, and how much of that was in the script?

CM: I wouldn’t say sneaky, he’s more sly, clever. Jeff doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, so I could never see him being sneaky at all. But playful, absolutely. I think he likes to have fun with people and play with their heads a bit. He is very bright and very much that Kevin Flynn character. Jeff’s a wonderful actor and now, having received the Academy Award, a lot of people think so. He brought a lot of himself to the character.

FE: What made me say sneaky is thinking back to the scene where you’re getting Kevin to your workstation, and he’s sneaking around between the spinning tape decks —

CM: Oh, he had to be a wise ass trying to throw me off my game, and that would be Jeff too! (Laughs)

FE: At that time, would you have had any clue we’d still be talking about TRON twenty-eight years later?

CM: No! Are you kidding? Absolutely not. The wonderful thing that’s astonishing and incredibly heart-warming is that both CADDYSHACK and TRON have stood the test of time. These two characters, Lacey Underall and Yori, couldn’t be further apart. The fact that people still love these films makes me feel wonderful that somewhere back there, twenty-eight years ago, thirty years ago, I did something right.

FE: It stands testament to how you approached both roles that they are in films very much a product of their time and yet they’re not dated at all. The characters aren’t dated. The technical look of TRON is a little dated by now because it can’t help it. But there’s nothing about your characters that look like they’re totally detached from today’s society. You can watch either film again and enjoy it just as much as you did thirty years ago. There’s a second generation of fans who never saw these films the first time around who still enjoy them just as much as the original fans.

CM: That’s incredible! The age span of fans is huge! I run the statistics on the demographics [of my website] all the time and I say what the heck! I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s about 79% male, but more and more females now and the age span is incredible. I love hearing from young women who admire the Yori character, and when I explain Lacey, it makes a lot more sense to them. A lot of guys say, well you didn’t wear a bra. I say let me explain something to you, son: we had just burned our bras, literally or figuratively (laughs), that was a political statement. That’s what Lacey carried out. Lacey was doing what every man was doing all along. We had just been given the right to choose, and so for that reason she was a strong character who enjoyed life, enjoyed sex and enjoyed having fun with people a little bit.

FE: To be honest, I’ve never made this connection with that character before, but such an approach to that kind of character is much more the 1940s approach to leading women. Lauren Bacall standing toe-to-toe with Humphrey Bogart and not giving an inch. They were on equal footing and that’s what makes those films compelling sixty, seventy years later.

CM: You are a genius! Do you know why? Doug Kenney, when I got Lacey, had Warner Brothers screen TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT for me. I walked into a screening room all by myself and watched Lauren Bacall. Doug said, “I want you to be Lauren Bacall.” You are dead on the money.

FE: You recently proposed a scenario on how Yori could return, even if your character Lora isn’t alive. How do you imagine this playing out for Yori 2.0 in a TRON LEGACY sequel perhaps?

CM: I think that idea first came when I was doing the voice of Ma3a in the TRON 2.0 video game. It was explained to me that Lora was gone and I said really? I don’t remember going anywhere in a digitizing accident. I was given blind copy [for the game], I wasn’t given a storyline to follow, so I had to fill it in for myself to make it real. The audience always knows when I’m lying. Case in point: there’s one line in TRON when I went to Steven Lisberger and said I can’t say this. But Steven was the writer and he won that argument. But to this day the audience laughs when I say, “Oh, Tron, I knew there wasn’t a circuit built that could hold you!” (Laughs) The audience knows I did not commit to that line. Had I committed to it, I could have pulled it off but I didn’t not make a full commitment.

FE: But TRON LEGACY’s director Joseph Kosinsky recently confirmed that the events of TRON 2.0 would not be canon for his film, so Lora’s fate is still undetermined for now. He said Lora doesn’t appear in the real world of this film, but left the door open for Yori to appear if not in this film then a TRON LEGACY sequel.

CM: When I was told that story that Lora had a son and that she was gone, I was thinking: if I had a son, and I was working with equipment that had potential to literally digitize you out of existence, the only thing I would be thinking of is making sure I would leave a legacy for that son. That I would leave something of me to take care of him. So when I did the character of Ma3a, it was described as a program that could help Jet but could be corrupted. But if I knew there was a danger and I had a son, that’s why they leave wills, they leave legacies. I’d want something of me in that computer to take care of him in the future.

FE: This makes such sense about Lora and Yori because that’s what the first film is all about: when you make these characters, it leaves something of you in that program. It’s not just a sequel idea to put Yori in the next film, it comes from the story concept of the original film.

CM: Just the instinct to take care of something is the strongest human instinct of all.

FE: It also makes sense where they’re taking the TRON story now, because it’s setting up that Sam’s quest for family means he goes into the computer world to find his father. But when he goes into the world of Tron and meets his father, that is his father. His father’s still alive in that world. But for Sam to go in and find a program written by his mother, yet it’s not his mother but the closest thing he’s had to a mother in a long time, that’s a very different emotional journey. We don’t know Sam’s backstory yet, but if he lost Lora when he was a young child, how compelling would it be for him to find a virtual facsimile of real mother, a program his mother left behind for him in that world that outlived Lora. There are compelling reasons to pursue this because that concept is what TRON is all about.

CM: Absolutely! And who wouldn’t want that opportunity? Who wouldn’t want the opportunity to go through something left by a parent and find a letter, a note, just some guidance, some message, some thought that they cared so much, that they put this together for their child? How much would that mean?

FE: And you get to interact with that lost parent instead of simply reading a letter or looking at a photograph. Lora puts her personality in this walking, talking program that has whatever feelings she invested in it. There’s so much more immediacy to encountering that person than just a remembrance. And it could affect Kevin Flynn that way too, seeing the wife that he lost again.

CM: Of all the scenarios described to me, that one is the most fleshed out. It’s completely tied together and in-sync with everything I’ve heard. I can’t tell you how heart-warming it is to have people say “We want you in this.” I’m just sitting here in awe watching all this support arise.

FE: To your credit, there’s a reason fans are so enthusiastic about campaigning for you to appear in new TRON movies.

CM: I’ve been hearing some interesting scenarios, that there’s a lost hard drive he could find, and so on. Everybody’s got ideas and I said, good, put it to a contest to pick one.

FE: TRON could be the next PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN for Disney. If so, I think it can work because dramatically there’s a reason to include Yori, not just by finding a technical excuse to squeeze her into a sequel with a shoe horn.

CM: Yes, it’s not contrived, it just naturally flows. It makes sense.

FE: And it’s not even an idea new to TRON LEGACY. The seeds for this idea were planted twenty-eight years ago in the original TRON. I assume Steven intended this so we would care about these computer characters, that there was drama on the other side of the screen. It was surrounded by a lot of jaw-dropping special effects, but at the heart it was those characters’ struggle to accomplish their goals to save the world of Tron.

CM: It will be very interesting to see after they roll the credits, just to take that PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN metaphor a little further. Not that I’m going to be swimming with an apple in my mouth like the monkey, but... (Laughs) But they could digitize Yori into it, like the orange.

FE: Plus you look great and have stayed in such good shape, Disney wouldn’t spend much money de-aging you back to whenever Lora disappeared.

CM: Oh, could you please put that in the article? (Laughs)

FE: Going back to your upcoming autobiography, which you say will cover your experiences making TRON through today. Fans will definitely want to read that. I know you’re rushing to finish the CADDYSHACK book in time for this summer, but when might your second book come out?

CM: Yes, first we’ll get the CADDYSHACK book out, then right on the heels of that the autobiography. I can write as fast as I talk because I have voice recognition software, so that’s pretty fast. I’d like to have that out by December.

Fans will certainly hear many more enjoyable tales from Cindy Morgan's career when these new books arrive in stores later this year, and FilmEdge will keep you posted on their publication updates.  Meanwhile, the fan campaign lobbying for Cindy's inclusion in the TRON LEGACY era of Disney's franchise continues in full force on the internet, with the Yori Lives campaign and more.  Be sure to check out Cindy's recently redesigned official website for the latest from the star herself.  FilmEdge thanks Cindy Morgan for use of the photos above she kindly provided.

FilmEdge continues our complete coverage of TRON LEGACY.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and the FilmEdge Blog for our latest update feeds and breaking news.