Even Greta Lee can't believe she's in a Tron movie: 'I can't wait for you to see Soojin from Girl...

The &34;Past Lives&34; and &34;Morning Show&34; star is still in &34;utter, relentless, chronic disbelief&34; to lead a studio movie like this after her start i

The "Past Lives" and "Morning Show" star is still in "utter, relentless, chronic disbelief" to lead a studio movie like this after her start in the Comedy Central scene.

Even Greta Lee can't believe she's in a Tron movie: 'I can't wait for you to see Soojin from Girls on the Lightcycle' (exclusive)

The "Past Lives" and "Morning Show" star is still in "utter, relentless, chronic disbelief" to lead a studio movie like this after her start in the Comedy Central scene.

By Nick Romano

Nick is an entertainment journalist based in New York, NY. If you like pugs and the occasional blurry photo of an action figure, follow him on Twitter @NickARomano.

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September 11, 2025 3:00 p.m. ET

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Greta Lee in 'Tron: Ares'. Credit:

- Greta Lee reflects on her journey from the "Millennial Comedy Central babies" all the way to *Tron: Ares*.

- Director Joachim Rønning admits he loved Lee in *Past Lives* and *The Morning Show* when casting the role of Eve Kim.

- Lee and Rønning address the timeliness of the AI debate.

Greta Lee knows what you're thinking: What is Soojin from HBO's *Girls* doing in *Tron: Ares*? She had the same question.

The actress, who's coming off of an awards-worthy performance in *Past Lives*, got her start in the comedy series scene, including *Broad City*, *New Girl*, and, yes, playing artist-assistant-turned-gallery-owner on the Lena Dunham-created dramedy. The next *Tron* movie feels like a major departure.

"Join me in my ongoing state of disbelief," Lee tells ** while sitting in Los Angeles traffic one Wednesday afternoon in late August. "Utter, relentless, chronic disbelief. It's completely wild."

Even more so, given her early career roots — something the California native, 42, shares with her castmates. Arturo Castro and Hasan Minhaj. Lee collectively refers to them as "Millennial Comedy Central babies," given their roots in that scene.

"We had more than a couple of laughs looking at each other in our Light suits and whatnot," Lee recalls. "I mean, in so, so much gratitude, but just total, total disbelief. How did we get here? This is incredible."**

Greta Lee and Hasan Minhaj in 'Tron: Ares'.

Jeff Bridges arrives to wild applause for 'Tron: Ares' Comic-Con planel: 'The Grid abides'

'Tron: Ares' trailer sends Jared Leto racing out of the digital world

In the film — about a sophisticated program named Ares (Jared Leto) that jumps from the digital world to the real world — Lee plays Eve Kim, the head of ENCOM, the tech company founded by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) in the original *Tron*. Her auditions for *Tron: Ares *were happening concurrently with the Oscar campaign for *Past Lives*, the moving indie film that also starred Teo Yoo and John Magaro.

"It was entirely unexpected for me," she says. "I wasn't seeking it out. I was, I guess, in a way, convinced to audition out of my own curiosity for the reasons that you stated." (There's a gorge between her early comedy work and a sci-fi studio franchise like *Tron*.)**

Director Joachim Rønning says he did watch *Past Lives* and loved her performance in it, as well as her work as Stella on Apple TV+ drama *The Morning Show*. "She has a great energy," the filmmaker tells EW in a separate conversation. "She came in and knocked us all out just in casting. She was there from the beginning and very high up on everybody's lists."

Eve is a programmer who turned ENCOM into a thriving company, thanks to the development of a *Fortnite*-like video game. Their chief rival is the Dillinger Corporation. That name should also be familiar to *Tron* enthusiasts; it was founded by Ed Dillinger (David Warner), the villain of the original movie. The tech giant is now run by Dillinger's daughter (Gillian Anderson) and her son, Julian (Evan Peters).

Greta Lee in 'Tron: Ares'.

Both companies are racing (just not on Lightcycles) to find a piece of code that could make complicated computer programs live in the real world. Enter Ares. Julian hopes to use Ares as a means of turning A.I. into machines of war, while Eve hopes the technology can solve world hunger and the energy crisis. Ares forms an opinion on the matter and chooses to go on the run with Eve, prompting Julian to send another program named Athena (Jodie-Turner Smith) after them.

Rønning brings up *Pinocchio* as a comparison (Ares just wants to become a real boy!), but Lee thinks *Bonnie and Clyde* is a more apt parallel. "Ares, this program, and Eve, this human, are this extremely unlikely duo that are forced to join forces in a very unlikely way," she says.

Both Rønning and Lee acknowledge how more timely a concept like *Tron: Ares* has become amid the AI explosion. It was something Lee was thinking about on the picket lines during the Hollywood actors' strike, which partly fought for AI protections for performers.

"From the beginning, I was hoping to be very deliberate and mindful about how we were approaching this," Lee says. "If anything, I had to convincingly play an expert in AI and in all of this tech while everything was happening around us. As you know, movies take a while [to make], and anticipating when this movie was gonna be finished and what our world would be, how fast things were changing even in that span of time, we were really lucky that we had the support and the resources."

*** Sign up for **'s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.***

One such support was Dr. Fei-Fei Li, a computer scientist and the so-dubbed "mother of AI" as the founder of ImageNet. Li cameos in *Tron: Ares* as part of a TED Talk with Lee's Eve. "I got to actually attend TED that year, whose entire focus was AI, and met so many people and really became fully immersed in the world and in the conversation," the actress reveals.

Rønning says the team "adjusted a little bit" of the film's story in light of the ongoing AI debate around the world. However, "At the end of the day, for me, the movie is not about AI, per se," he says. "It's about Ares' journey into discovering what it means and takes to be human."

And Lightcycles. The movie is also about Lightcycles. Lee leaves us with a final thought as the conversation wraps: "I can't wait for you to see Soojin from *Girls* on the Lightcycle."

*Tron: Ares* opens in theaters Oct. 10.

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