Ready Player One

Ben Mendelsohn on playing human malware in Steven Spielberg’s VR adventure

BEN MENDELSOHN LOVES Pac-man. He’s a wizard on the pinball table. But when it comes to virtual-reality gaming, his experience amounts to a single session on a horror simulator. “You’re in a house and there are gobliny-type dudes coming towards you as the lights go out,” the Australian actor recalls. “I’d hear a noise — GRAAH! — and look over and there’d be some beast that’s advanced.” So he got a little scared? “No, I’m not giving you that,” he shoots back, fixing Empire with a gimlet glare. “I found myself immersed.” Now, with Steven Spielberg’s Ready

Player One, Mendelsohn finds himself back in a VR world, but this time as the baddie. Not a gobliny-type dude, mind, but money-grabbing CEO Nolan Sorrento, who’s bent on beating plucky teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) to the prize at the end of a digital treasure hunt: full ownership of the OASIS, the sprawling, massively popular cyber-world in which anything is possible. “I play the guy who runs the hardware division [of mega-corporation Innovative Online Industries],” he says. “And I have an interest in trying to secure the viability of the virtual space, which is free, into a user-pays model. The heroes of the film may have different ideas about that.”

Mendelsohn is no stranger to massive blockbusters and A-list directors, having appeared in Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods And

Kings and last year’s Rogue One: A Star Wars

Story. But despite his air of unfazeability, he admits that he got starstruck when he was called in to meet “the Boss” for Ready Player One. “I got very excited and nervous; I found it hard to look him in the eye,” he says. “Steven’s created a lot of legendary pop culture. The canon is so huge and so awesome. I love Saving Private Ryan. I love

1941. I’m very, very partial to [the Spielbergproduced] Poltergeist, with the girl and the television and the lovely little spirit lady. Part of the joy of Spielberg doing this film is to be able to play in this referencing of pop culture, of which he is a substantial contributor.”

Anything can happen inside the OASIS, as is demonstrated by the new trailer, which features Freddy Krueger, the Iron Giant and even the Delorean from the Back To The Future trilogy, which Spielberg also produced. In Ernest Cline’s source novel, Sorrento at one point transforms into Mechagodzilla to battle Watts’ avatar. While Spielberg’s specific take on the story is being kept under wraps, the concept allows for Mendelsohn’s villain to take any form he chooses — even, should he so wish, that creepy TV from

Poltergeist. It’s the ultimate playground, and so, Mendelsohn says, was the set of the movie. “I think that this is charting new spots,” he concludes. “It’s very much an adventure. I expect it to be quite a thrilling ride.”

READY PLAYER ONE IS IN CINEMAS FROM 30 MARCH 2018