A Brave New "Westworld"6 of 8
Playing a rebooting robot is the "acting Olympics."
"You’re having to shift between a panic attack into a complete freeze, into character accent mode, into computer analysis mode in a span of about 30 seconds sometimes. So, figuring out how to do that and with that intense focus that it took was real fun," says Wood. "But we would ask questions: Will the sun blind us? Do we squint in the sun? Do we sweat? Do we breathe?" "The preparation was meticulous, as you can imagine," adds Thandie Newton, who plays a madam working in the saloon. "I actually found that every time I played the character, it was like a meditation. I felt more perfectly, beautifully, exquisitely human than I’ve ever felt, just by nature, the simplicity and how definite these characters had to be, and that was very interesting. Making sure that we establish the engineering and the physicality of our characters was hugely important, and we had to start with simplicity because it’s going to go on a journey."
"You’re having to shift between a panic attack into a complete freeze, into character accent mode, into computer analysis mode in a span of about 30 seconds sometimes. So, figuring out how to do that and with that intense focus that it took was real fun," says Wood. "But we would ask questions: Will the sun blind us? Do we squint in the sun? Do we sweat? Do we breathe?" "The preparation was meticulous, as you can imagine," adds Thandie Newton, who plays a madam working in the saloon. "I actually found that every time I played the character, it was like a meditation. I felt more perfectly, beautifully, exquisitely human than I’ve ever felt, just by nature, the simplicity and how definite these characters had to be, and that was very interesting. Making sure that we establish the engineering and the physicality of our characters was hugely important, and we had to start with simplicity because it’s going to go on a journey."