Britt Robertson stars with George Clooney in “Tomorrowland.”
Actress Britt Robertson, tiny and 25 but looking very much like a college student, has been very active for more than a decade. However, she retains a sense of wonder about being cast in cool projects, which suits “Tomorrowland” just fine.
The science-fiction mystery-adventure with George Clooney and Robertson in the lead roles under the direction of the Bay Area’s own Brad Bird (“The Incredibles”) is something of a blender of cinematic elements. Underneath the bells and whistles, it’s largely about just that quality — that kind of naive enthusiasm that enables discoveries to happen, that allows for possibilities.
“I look at my siblings, and so many of them have wonder and dreams,” says North Carolinian Robertson, oldest of seven. “They have imagination. They are really alive. But I … wonder … what it would be like if they didn’t have a phone, if they weren’t Googling things ... if they were coming up with their own remedies. ... I don’t think there’s enough of it — there can never be enough of it.”
Technology’s downsides
That struggle with technology that’s meant to help but can hinder is one of the underlying tensions in Bird’s film.
“I think there is a tendency to stay stimulated on a very thin surface, to dance around on the top of a very big lake but only get about an inch deep,” says Bird in a separate interview at the Montage Beverly Hills. “It’s exhilarating for a moment, going ‘yamyamyam,’ demanding your attention, but it doesn’t allow you to go deep- er.”
Bird hopes “Tomorrowland” encourages people to “go deeper,” though he’s quick to point out it’s no prescription medicine for the world’s ills. He says it’s “an entertainment meant to go well with popcorn.” It’s also the latest film based on a Disneyland attraction. The original “Tomorrowland” was described by Walt Disney’s original 1955 dedication as “a vista into a world of wondrous ideas. ... A step into the future, with … the hope for a peaceful, unified world.”
The film’s version is a secret place masterminded by geniuses (Tesla, Edison and of course Disney, among others), from which all manner of technological advances come to help the world we know. Something has gone wrong and the future is coming to an end unless ordinary girl genius Casey (Robertson) can save it, with the help of a disillusioned former boy genius (Clooney) and a mysterious girl (Raffey Cassidy) who apparently hasn’t aged in 50 years.
Bird says co-writer Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) was “intrigued with the word Tomorrowland. Really, we didn’t have anything we were told to adhere to beyond the word. That was a wide-open field for us to explore and play in.”
The director says the film defies genre: “It’s kind of its own creature. Because of that, we were constantly bumping into furniture and making mistakes and having to recalibrate, because the movie was telling us what it wanted to be.”
Robertson says Bird and his team “were constantly coming up with new technical solutions so we didn’t have to use green screen or CGI. There’s one scene where I’m flying over the wheat fields and they had me in this tiny chair attached to a stick that’s attached to the vehicle carrying the camera, and I was actually flying over the wheat fields.”
‘So much excitement’
She says because of that spirit of innovation, “there was so much excitement in me and in the crew, and that happened a lot in the film.”
Despite her youth, Robertson (“Dan in Real Life,” “Under the Dome”) already has around 40 film and television credits. Yet she found her director’s empathy unusual — and precious. In one scene involving those practical stunts she praises, she was struck by anxiety before having to be dropped (on wires) from a high platform.
“He said, ‘Let her down, let her go outside and get some air.’ And I walked outside, and he came out and he just hugged me. It was like, ‘It’s OK — you’ve been so brave and so hardworking; you’re allowed this moment.’
“It was more than just being that director who gets what he wants, and being a visionary and all that stuff; that’s all important. He’s a good person who cares.”
Bird says, “She’s resilient. She’s empathetic without seeming like she’s asking for it. She’s striking, but she has the girl-next-door quality to her. You believe her as somebody who could be interested in science but not be too much of a geek about it.”
The teen within
Robertson says, “My sister’s 17 and she’s a goofy weirdo who comes up with all kinds of strange stuff, so I think he was trying to find that 17-year-old girl sometimes and just making me do all kinds of stuff to experiment.”
Bird says there’s more to her performance than that, as when Casey gazes “at the stars and has this look that’s kind of heartbroken, thinking she’s never gonna get there.”
The actress recalls being on one of the movie’s signature futuristic sets, by a river, as snow began to fall. She calls the conditions “horribly cold” and “brutal” for a night shoot in wintry Vancouver when she was already exhausted. “And I’m not a night person,” she says. But then:
“They brought out the heaters and people are huddling around, and you’re looking at this beautiful set. I remember really just taking it in and appreciating it — forgetting about the cold, forgetting about the environment, the circumstances, the pressure, because a lot of times I’d be so aware of all those things. But I remember in that moment, just appreciating it so much and loving it: ‘You’re going to look back on this day and you’re going to talk about it as the most fun day.’
“I went over to George, and he was laughing about his shoes being wet or something. I was just cracking up, loving the people I was around, the people I was working with. Just happy to be there.”