Tron: Legacy's Costumes Weren't Just Uncomfortable - They Were Dangerous

Science fiction and superhero costumes have a long history of being rather uncomfortable, but only a few have had the special distinction of being legitimately dangerous. Sure, the stretchy one-piece jumpsuits on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" season 1 were so restrictive that they caused Patrick Stewart back pain, but according to "Tron: Legacy" star Michael Sheen, those super cool-looking light suits from the 2010 "Tron" sequel were even more hazardous and even electrocuted the film's lead, Garrett Hedlund. Uncomfortable costumes are one thing, but being zapped by your outfit is something else entirely, and it sounds like a really bad time at work. (Unless that's, like, your thing. No judgment.)

In an interview with Vulture, Sheen shared all of the gritty details behind the making of "Tron: Legacy," and while his outfit was so restrictive that he had to basically be wheeled around on a hand truck between scenes, he felt much worse for Hedlund, who apparently kept getting shocked by his suit whenever he got sweaty. When you factor in the heat from studio set lights and how hot those costumes had to be anyway, that's a whole lot of unexpected electricity happening. "Tron: Legacy" helped pave the way for our modern cinematic landscape, for better and for worse, so maybe Hedlund deserves a little more love for going through such significant pain only to end up being left out of the sequel, "Tron: Ares."

In "Tron: Legacy," Sheen played the probability program Castor, who ran the End of the Line Club. Castor's outfit is sort of a wild white-and-gray mix of David Bowie and a pop star from the "Star Wars" universe, but its light-up elements are pretty slick. Unfortunately, the whole thing was also super unpleasant to wear. As Sheen explained: 

"The costume I wore was incredibly uncomfortable but also kind of amazing. We all pretty much had to be sewn into these outfits. Once you're in them — certainly mine, anyway — you couldn't sit down. They had to get us these special, like, the thing that Hannibal Lecter is rolled around on. When you wanted to rest on set, you had to lean against these things that you got sort of strapped to. That tells you what the costume was like. It had electricity running through it, it was able to light up, it had all these wires. And poor Garrett, I remember during the fight scenes, he got constantly electrocuted. His body was burnt because he was sweating from doing the fight scenes, and this thing was just electrifying him."

While these days that kind of effect might be achieved with digital workarounds or by using low-wattage LED lights that require significantly less power (and, thus, wouldn't shock Hedlund, at least not as badly), real light strips were unfortunately the best way to create the effect circa the late 2000s when "Tron: Legacy" was being filmed. At least they still look phenomenal 15 years later, and things have progressed enough that the most uncomfortable part of shooting "Tron: Ares" was just being forced to share a set with Jared Leto. That's better than being electrocuted ... right?