Jodie Turner-Smith Had Motorcycle Skills Before ‘Tron’ (Exclusive)

When Jodie Turner-Smith says she’s acquiring skills as an actor to prepare for an “impending apocalypse,” it’s unclear whether or not she’s joking. 

“I’m trying to collect survival skills for when, inevitably, society completely collapses,” the Tron: Ares star, 39, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “Film and television has really given me the ability to work on weapons training. So that’s already in the pocket.”

Turner-Smith grins when she adds, “I need to be able to operate as many kinds of motor vehicles as possible in preparation for the impending apocalypse.” Up next? “I want to make sure that I know how to drive a boat and a helicopter.”

It’s why she already had motorcycling on the special skills section of her résumé before riding the iconic Light Cycles of the Tron franchise, which began with the Jeff Bridges-starring 1982 original and continued with 2010’s Tron: Legacy. For Disney’s new sequel Ares (in theaters Oct. 10), the British actress underwent training in wire work and wielding a bō staff opposite Jared Leto and Greta Lee. Turner-Smith plays Athena, a combative A.I. who, along with Leto’s Ares, is uploaded to the real world. 

“It’s fun when you get to train six days a week on somebody else’s dime,” quips The Agency star. “Even though I’d already been a person who works out, I got to really go hard.” 

Turner-Smith’s favorite part of the Joachim Rønning-directed sci-fi spectacle was getting “to raise hell” as the warrior Athena. One memorable scene — involving her emerging from rubble to chase down Lee and Arturo Castro — was “like my Terminator moment,” she says. 

“I work hard and I also play hard,” she adds. “Especially when you get to put on costumes that are out there and ride on Light Cycles and pretend like you’re inside of a computer grid, it definitely is [play].”

However, when it comes to skills that “help you with the apocalypse or some kind of dangerous situation,” says Turner-Smith, she’s deadly serious about teaching such to her 5-year-old daughter Juno, who she shares with ex-husband Joshua Jackson. 

“I want to put her in Taekwondo,” says the actress. “It’s very important for girls to know how to defend themselves because, God willing you’re never in that situation, but sometimes you might need to know how to choke somebody out with your legs and put somebody to sleep!”

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Where will Turner-Smith’s quest for survival skills take her next? “I want to do everything,” she admits. “I want to do a musical. I haven’t really done horror yet.”

This time, the Queen & Slim star clarifies she’s “just kidding” when she reflects that many of her onscreen roles involve dying. “I just want to live,” says Turner-Smith with a laugh. “That’s what I want to do next: live at the end of a movie.”

Tron: Ares, costarring Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Gillian Anderson and Bridges, is in theaters now. Turner-Smith also stars in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, in theaters now.