The one-hour drama series Westworld kicks off its ten-episode season Sunday, October 2nd at 9pm, exclusively on HBO/HBO Canada.
Created for television by Jonathan Nolan (Interstellar, The Dark Knight, Person of Interest) and Lisa Joy (Pushing Daisies, Burn Notice), both of whom are executive producing and writing, with Nolan also directing, the series was inspired by the 1973 motion picture Westworld, written and directed by Michael Crichton.
Westworld is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin, exploring a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged. Co-creator Nolan explained in a press release, “Building on the incredibly evocative concept of the original film, we wanted to pose the question: If you could be completely immersed in a fantasy, one in which you could do whatever you wanted, would you discover things about yourself that you didn’t want to know?”
Co-creator Joy added, “We also wanted to explore what it means to be human from the outside in – through the eyes of the ‘hosts’: the lifelike AI characters that are the main attractions of the park. It’s a meditation on consciousness – the blessing and the burden of it – beautifully portrayed by our remarkable cast.”
Westworld stars Anthony Hopkins (Academy Award winner for The Silence of the Lambs; Academy Award nominee for Remains of the Day, Nixon, Amistad), Ed Harris (Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee for HBO’s Game Change; Academy Award nominee for Pollock, Apollo 13), Evan Rachel Wood (Golden Globe nominee for Thirteen; Emmy and Golden Globe nominee for HBO’s Mildred Pierce), James Marsden (the X-Men films), Thandie Newton (Mission: Impossible II) and Jeffrey Wright (HBO’s Confirmation; Emmy® and Golden Globe winner for HBO’s Angels in America).
Among Westworld’s main players are: Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), the brilliant, taciturn and complicated creative director, chief programmer and founder of Westworld, who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park. The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is the distillation of pure villainy into one man. Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) is a provincial, beautiful and kind rancher’s daughter, who begins to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie.
Photo: HBO Canada/Westworld
