The madame of Westworld!

Thandie Newton will be portraying the role of Maeve Millay in the upcoming series Westworld, a sci-fi thriller, created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy

Over the years, we have seen Thandie Newton portray varied roles in films like The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II and Crash, with élan. Now, the 43-year-old actress is all set to enthrall audience with the upcoming television series, Westworld — a science-fiction thriller is based on the 1973 Hollywood film of the same name. For the series, Thandie joins a powerful star-studded cast that includes the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden and more. Thandie, who will be seen as Maeve Millay, the ‘madame’ of Westworld, speaks about what made her accept the project and on what we can expect from the show.

What attracted you to Westworld The first time I met Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, I told them I was intrigued by this because Jonathan is brilliant and Lisa is this fantastic, kickass woman, at the very top of the industry.

Then, I read the pilot and I had to say, sorry; but it feels like there are situations of sexual violence. But I knew that with these two, there had to be a purpose behind it.

Have you always been a fan of sci-fi and westerns I never thought I was a sci-fi fan. But then, Jonathan and Lisa asked me if I had seen any Sergio Leoni films. So there I was, watching Once Upon A Time in the West, and it was absolutely exquisite.

From what we gather from the first two episodes, your character goes through a lot — as do many of the characters. How did you prepare for such a full-on role, and show, that doesn’t shy away from issues of sex and violence When I read the pilot script, there was so much that I was horrified by — the violence and the depravity. And it seemed at odds with what I know Jonathan and Lisa want to put out into the world.

But the whole point of it is to shock us into the awareness that this is what we do to each other. This is violence between humans, and robots who can just get reprogrammed, patched up and turned off — but real people can’t.

I understand you weren’t told the full arc of your story at the beginning, which is obviously very different to making a film — how did you find that Yes, I had no idea what was going to happen episode to episode. We shot the pilot, and then a year later, we came back to shoot the show. The pilot was a completely different experience. We had a lot of time to talk through the arc of where everything was going to go. It was great that we had time, because it was really important to get everything right.

How did you approach playing a robot who is supposed to be incredibly human-like I wondered how much movement, how little movement, how much emotion, how little emotion I would need to use. I didn’t even know if I was going to have to be slightly robotic. You have a very dramatic episode two, in which you are naked for a lot of the time. Did you have any reservations about that I am naked almost all the time in the show, but I am completely calm about it — because they don’t zoom in on bits and pieces. I have been in shows with clothes and I feel more exposed, more exploited, as a woman. You did a TED talk a few years ago on the topic of ‘Embracing Otherness’ — would you like to do more of them I want to write a workshop on racism, for schoolchildren, because I think it could really change generations. I want to set out the idea that racism is completely spurious, it was created during colonialism, and we’ve got to get rid of colonial labels.

(Westworld premieres in India on October 4 on Star World Premiere HD)