Evan Rachel Wood on Her Perplexing New Westworld Character

The advertising for Westworld season 4 made it clear that Evan Rachel Wood—whose formidable Host character, Dolores, was obliterated on the finish of season three—would return. Now that the primary episode has aired, we’ve met Wood in her new position: Christina, a shy single gal within the large metropolis. Westworld is identified for throwing curveballs, however this could be its greatest one but.

Obviously Wood can’t disclose a lot about what lies forward for Christina, though each Westworld fan who’s been following the present because the starting (and is due to this fact very conversant in its love of misdirection) is aware of there’s acquired to be extra to her than what we’ve seen to this point. In a current roundtable interview, io9 and different press acquired an opportunity to ask Wood and Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy about what’s in retailer for Christina. It’s obvious that her character might be tied into the present’s bigger themes revolving round storytelling—notably because it pertains to who’s answerable for the narrative.

“When we first meet Christina, we see that that she is a writer and that she is a storyteller. She works for a gaming company,” Wood mentioned. “But clearly, something is off and something is going on, because she’s getting these crazy phone calls from a stranger who is accusing her and her stories of being real and actually influencing real people. So I think, you know, that’s about as much as I can say. But I think it’s going to be one of the fun things, too, that will sort of unfold—that we get to learn about Christina this season—is what is actually happening. Who is Christina? Where are we? When are we? What is happening and what is her role?”

Though we don’t know a lot about Christina but, we will inform she’s fairly completely different from Dolores. However, there are similarities, not simply of their clearly an identical appearances, however in the best way Christina’s life follows a set routine—get up, go to work, go residence, time and again—not not like Dolores’ life did within the early days of Westworld. This sense of deliberate familiarity is one thing that crops up all through season 4, not simply on the subject of Christina’s scenes, however throughout all of the storylines.

“We were interested in looking at the way that history tends to repeat itself, or at least rhyme with itself over time,” Joy defined. “I think that as we progress, the lens has gone from being in the pilot, basically Host-based, to a more even split between Hosts and humans, as we’ve kind of shifted the gaze of the narrative. We’re trying to explore the similarities and differences between the two species here—and so in doing so, it’s been helpful to reference the way in which everybody, even humans, live in these kind of loops and find themselves stuck in a rut or seeming to be unable to change their circumstances or even behaviors that they don’t want or like about themselves. That’s been a recurring theme, just exploring through a different angle.”

With all that historical past repeating, is there an opportunity that Westworld’s characters—be they human or Host—will be capable to get away of their ruts and welcome within the change and progress they so desperately search? “This is the question, right?,” Joy mentioned. “When so many things can stay the same, what aspect of our lives and of our society as a collective can we change? I think that’s one of the things that is not science fiction about the quandaries of the show … there seems to be a lot of problems in getting the kind of consensus needed to move forward and act as a species together. And it’s funny because it flouts logic, but the systems of the world, the different bureaucracies, the different loops that society is in and the different mini loops that individuals are in, they can often stymie change no matter how badly we want it, or how much we intellectually know we should strive for it. And the question really is, for Hosts and humans, how much can we save ourselves from ourselves? How much can we transcend our limitations and learn from our mistakes?”

New episodes of Westworld arrive Sundays on HBO Max.

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