Real world

partners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, bring to the table?

“What sets Westworld apart, like all good sci-fi, is that it’s based in reality,” says Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Dolores, one of the hosts at the park. “The writing and storytelling are so complex and detailed. The themes are about human nature, our creations turning on us, and technology – all things that are really relevant right now.”

Unlike the disposable, cipher characters of a show like Black Mirror, Westworld builds labyrinthine and mysterious stories about its hosts and humans alike. Dolores, for example, suddenly remembers the many repeated traumas inflicted on her by the guests, memories which are supposed to be wiped clean after every reboot. Her sentience triggers a deep-seated need for revenge. By the end of the first season, other hosts join her in waking up to their reality – including bar manager/madame Maeve (Thandie Newton) – and turn on the uber-privileged humans who can afford to visit a park that allows them to play out their most twisted fantasies.

For Wood, her character’s transformation from a dainty farmer’s daughter to what the like #MeToo were not the driving catalyst in the writers’ room. The show’s themes and events of the last year happened to coincide. “I didn’t need a harassment scandal to break out in Hollywood or misogynistic people in government to know they exist. Anybody who’s a woman, a minority or a thinking, perceiving male can see that it exists,” says Joy.

All characters regardless of gender undergo an evolution. Joy says the western genre inspired the writers to play around with the qualities associated with masculinity. “Traditional westerns typify some of the hardships men face: you have to be rugged, silent, stoic. It’s a man against nature, against the world. What must it be to walk in those shoes? What an isolating, alienating challenge that must be. Feeling trapped in identity isn’t just the purview of women and minorities. I think that’s one of the things that unites us.”

It’s easy to apply the lone-wolf description to the leathery-faced Man in Black (Ed Harris) and the younger, idealistic William (Jimmi Thompson), whom the show (and many reddit fan theorists) revealed to be the same person in different time periods. But the second season adds depth to side characters, and adds new faces, motivations to build the park. “You get more of a backstory into the characters and into the park. There was this ominous thing in the first season about the real reason of the park. We’re definitely delving into that more and why it’s there. I don’t think it’s just for entertainment,” hints Wood.

For a show that was already dark – the comparisons to Game of Thrones remain accurate given the amount of violence – Season 2 reaches new levels of “mayhem and madness,” according to Joy. “I fell in love with those characters, even the villains. I empathize with their pain and darkness because I think everybody has some darkness. Hopefully not as much darkness as our villains, but there’s something deeply human about their performances.”

While there is no real-world park like Westworld – yet – the parallels to human experience had some of the actors question their relationship to technology. “One of the reasons why this show excited me was the subject matter is really what we’re going through right now. There’s not a better time to talk about it,” says Santoro. “I don’t think the show is critiquing but raising a lot of questions. Look at our cell phones, our dependency on that, who’s in control. I value performing Rick Astley’s classic internet-trolling ballad “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

“The joke is that, for a show about how technology can leapfrog the human mind, reddit is a perfect example of harnessing a collective consciousness,” says Joy. “We didn’t anticipate how much the hive-mind would act as an accelerator. With reddit you can thumbs-up and push to the top of the list the theories that have the most cogency and appeal.”

Joy doesn’t have a problem with this degree of fan devotion given that the intricate narrative is written as a mystery. “Characters are trying to be the detectives of their own lives. We’re trying to drop a cohesive clue trail, so it’s no wonder the audience, in being able to look at the characters piecing it together, have a macro new level of viewing.”

Wood, the obsessive fan theorist on set, also views the hosts’ sentience more figuratively.

“We’re living in this false reality that we’ve all agreed upon,” she explains. “There are rules, this story being written for you, who you’re supposed to be, how you’re supposed to act. So if you pay attention to the show, it‘s telling you a lot about your own reality.”