‘Westworld’ Creators Explore “Dark Thrills”, Human Nature; Jimmi Simpson Admits Reasons for Playing Weird Roles

‘Westworld’ creators and executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy talked about creating the series as well as the issues of human nature and the pursuit of “dark thrills.” Meanwhile, Jimmi Simpson admitted that he enjoys playing weird characters. Simpson portrays William on the series.

According to WUNC, Nolan and Joy appeared on the show “Fresh Air” hosted by Terry Gross to talk about their latest science-fiction and thriller series for HBO. The couple adapted the series from a 1973 film of the same name, which was written and directed by Michael Crichton. It is the first time Nolan and Joy worked together.

When asked by Fresh Air producer Sam Briger if either of them has seen the original film and its sequel ‘Futureworld’ prior to creating the series, Nolan admitted that he watched the film as a kid and succumbed to “nightly panics” over Yul Brynner’s gunslinger.

Nolan said, “Crichton had this amazing gift to sort of peer into the future and see what our technologies would enable for us. And here with "Westworld," he was anticipating not just AI, not just robots, which is a target that's been tackled before, but robots very specifically in this position of servicing our fantasies.”

Joy commented on human nature on the show saying, “I mean, I certainly think in that example and in - these are people who are looking for the dark thrills of the park. And, frankly, it's - most video games when people play them, they play for similar thrills.”

When asked about the amount of violence on the show, Nolan replied, “There is a lot of violence in the show, but I think it is trying to be critical on a level of why is it that we enjoy these things in our film and television, in the novels that we read universally? …Why do we enjoy watching these things?”

Nolan is best known for creating the CBS series ‘Person of Interest’ and collaborated with his brother Christopher on several films including 2000’s ‘Memento’, 2006’s ‘The Prestige’, 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’ and its sequel ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, and 2014’s ‘Interstellar.’

Meanwhile, Joy was a Harvard Law School graduate and practicing lawyer in New Jersey prior to honing a career in the entertainment industry. She is known for her work as writer on the fantasy-comedy drama ‘Pushing Daisies’ and also wrote and co-produced USA Network’s ‘Burn Notice.’

Meawhile, Jimmi Simpson, who plays the reluctant first-timer William, admitted during an interview with Complex that he had a tendency to go for weird roles because doing so had “endless potential.” He said, “I think you have to kind of feel like you’re pretty handsome and cool to be able to step into an audition for some kind of lead hero, and that’s just not how I look. But also, the idea of stepping into something that is completely different, it has endless potential.”

Simpson continued, “If you are willing to play things that are strange and off putting, you can look underneath the actions of a character and realize that we are all human, and as weird as the sh*t we do is, we are all doing it for a solid reason, at least as far as we’re concerned. Really, nobody is doing anything to be an a**hole—most people are doing sh*t because they think it’s just and true. So I love that for some reason.”

‘Westworld’ season 1 premiered on HBO on October 2016. It stars Simpson, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Ben Barnes, Clifton Collins Jr., Luke Hemsworth, Rodrigo Santoro, and Ingrid Bolso Berdal.