From playing the doomed queen in AMC+’s Anne Boleyn to a romantic fugitive in Queen & Slim , Jodie Turner-Smith is no stranger to visually striking projects and physically demanding roles. Still, stepping into the digital world of Tron: Ares took her to a new frontier.

In Tron: Ares , the long-awaited new chapter in Disney’s cult sci-fi saga, Turner-Smith plays Athena, a sophisticated computer program. The film picks up in a new era for the Grid, the multinational computer corporation helmed by Jeff Bridges’s Kevin Flynn in the 1982 original, with software engineer Eve Kim (Greta Lee) now in command. Against the franchise’s signature neon-lit backdrop, the film, out on October 10, considers questions of consciousness, technology, and power.

Athena, Turner-Smith says, “kicks ass—a

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