(energetic percussion music)
- Hi, Tessa! - Hi!
- Bringing yourself back online for "Westworld"?
- (laughs) Yeah.
(Josh imitates android beep)
(Tessa laughs) - That's how it goes,
I think it's like that, a quick little whirl.
- Yeah.
- How excited are you for people to see season three,
because I think that there's a lot
of questions about how different the show
is gonna be this year versus the past couple
of seasons. - Yeah, I'm so excited.
This has been my favorite season thus far to make.
I was anxious, as I'm sure maybe the audience was,
maybe they weren't, to get out of the park.
I've always been so curious what the greater context
of the show is and seeing what the world
looks like, and I think the world is pretty fascinating,
in terms of what we've painted this year,
so I can't wait for people to see it.
- In that regard, we're vaulting into
a future version of our world.
- Yeah. - What was it like
to explore that, both in the writing
and then in performing the scenes
that you were in this year?
- I mean, incredible.
I spent the vast majority of last season
in the park in disarray.
This year, it's a whole new Charlotte,
if she is Charlotte. - Right.
- It's fascinating to see these characters
that we've lived with in completely
different circumstances, to see new sides of them,
and also, again, to get to see
what the world looks like.
I think the hosts have this idea
that they get into the world and it's free,
and the truth is, I think, the world that we paint
is one where there's a real sort of algorithmic determinism,
where your destiny is really created by data,
and we live in a time now where data
has surpassed oil in terms of its import.
It's the most valuable asset in the world now.
So we live in a place where data
is big money and big business and really does
affect the way that we go through our lives.
So I think the show asks some really
fascinating questions about how
we live now, and I love that.
- I was gonna ask you how you feel
the show is sort of speaking to where we are culturally,
but you would say the vision of the future
that we're seeing in "Westworld" is a vision
that you can see, to some extent, at least.
Maybe not with all the killer robots
and theme parks, but-- - (sighs) But--
- [Josh] A lot of the material is--
- Certainly, I find myself, I don't know if you do,
I don't know your relationship to social media,
but sometimes I just-- - It's bad!
(laughs) - It's awful, right?
I'll find myself just on Instagram,
and I don't even know how I got there.
I think we are a little bit, in this modern world,
on a loop, and we are really affected by technology,
and we are, in some ways, a slave to it.
So, yeah, I think that there's some fun stuff
to explore this season, where that's concerned.
- Last season, at the end of it, and really,
in scenes studded throughout season two,
you started to get to explore what
it's like to play a different character
within Charlotte Hale. - Yeah. (laughs)
- So you were playing two last year.
No spoilers on how many different people
you could be playing this year,
but what has that process been like
to sort of discover whether or not
we know who the character is underneath Charlotte Hale?
There is at least someone you're facing forward
to the world as if you are Charlotte Hale.
- Yeah, yeah. - So you're tracking
a lot of different aspects of this character.
What has the big challenge been in all of that?
- It's an immense challenge to sort of keep
a handle on it, but it's so fun.
You have the chance to present something
entirely new, and that happened sort of midway
through to the end of the last season,
so it meant that I got to text Evan
in the middle of the night and be like,
"Hey, will you send me a voice memo
"of you saying this line?" and trying to sort of infuse
her voice into my performance, or going to set
and watching the way that she moves, and I'm like,
"Oh, right, she doesn't really move her hands
"that much when she walks," so, fun nuances of performance.
And then, the truth is, I think we, as human beings,
we play all sorts of different parts,
depending on who we're in front of.
That's just a part of what we do as humans.
So to get to do it as this sort of subhuman
or superhuman was interesting.
And then, I started the show being a human,
and now, to play a robot, I get to ask all fun questions,
like, "Do robots close their eyes when they sleep?
"Do they sleep?"
(laughs) I sort of had to learn
a whole new protocol, in terms of performance,
like, "What does a tear mean to a host?
"Does it mean anything?"
And I love that, especially when you're doing
long-format television, you're telling
so many hours of a story, so it's fun
to get to see characters grow and change and shift,
and I hope the audience is as excited
to watch it as we were to play it.
- I think one of the things that was surprising
to me was, my big question about you
coming into this season is, "Who are you?"
First and foremost-- - It's my big
question to myself.
- For all of us, right? - I wake up and I'm like,
"Who am I?"
- It is 2020, we're asking these kinds of questions.
- I hope so.
- (laughs) Yeah, I hope so.
- 'Cause if you're not, what are you doing?
You need to wake up.
- But what was interesting to me was,
I think that the episodes that I've seen so far,
anyway, are also asking compelling questions
about who was Charlotte Hale.
- Yeah. - And showing a sort
of different dimensionality to somebody
who was a fairly straight antagonist
through the time that we had her on the show.
Was that fascinating to you, to kind of get
under the hood of who Charlotte was
outside of some of the bravado, outside of some
of the stuff in the park? - Oh, completely,
because I didn't know any of this stuff.
I'm discovering these things in performance
as the audience is, and I think in the past,
Charlotte presented to me, she presented
this idea of big business, what a corporation
looks like, that there's this idea that you
put the bottom line before human emotions.
She was sort of, didn't really care much
about hosts, about the emotionality
of these sentient beings.
She was kinda like, "I'm about the money."
And then you get to see, actually,
the cost of power, you get to see her relationship
to herself, but of course, you get to see it
through me, and I'm kind of an impostor.
I'm an impartial person that's suddenly
in her life, and having to reconcile
all the choices that she made, good and bad,
and that's fascinating to play, really, really cool to play.
I wish I could body-snatch just in general, you know?
- Yeah.
- It'd be so fun to just suit up as someone
and be like, "Hmm, today I'm so-and-so."
It's like emotional espionage, is that a thing?
- [Josh] I think it has to be
a thing. - Yeah?
(laughs) That's what it felt like.
- If it's not already, you just
coined it. - It is now.
- A new industry.
(Tessa laughs) But it's not all fun and games
for the character that you're playing underneath Charlotte,
where she's struggling with this,
and I think that it's telling a really fascinating story
about what it's like to not feel like
your body is your own, to not feel like you're comfortable
in your own skin. - Whoa!
- I think one of the things that's great
about "Westworld" generally, but really this season,
is you're seeing gender norms being
really defied this year.
As a host, as a robot, you're not
necessarily a man or a woman.
- Well, you're speaking my
language now. - Yeah.
- I think gender is a construct
that gets us into all sorts of trouble.
I don't believe in it too much, anyways.
And I think for me, Charlotte Hale's always been
someone that bucks convention, in terms of that.
I remember the first season, people talking
about the way that she behaves,
and they didn't really buy it or understand it,
and I was like, "If she were doing all those very same
"things and she were a man, I don't think you'd
"have those complaints about her character.
"I don't think you would assassinate it in the same way."
So I've always loved the questions that she poses
about gender, and I think you're so right.
I hadn't really thought about that element
of it to that extent, but I think we're
at a time where, hopefully, we're all reckoning
with these ideas and seeing sort of more fluidity
and our ideas about gender being upended,
and it's cool if the show can be
a part of that conversation.
- Did you have a favorite day on set
that you can even hint at right now?
- No. (laughs) (Josh laughs)
- [Josh] It's far in the future?
- I can't, because I have, yeah, I had so many
favorite days on set, but I think they're all spoilers.
But I think something that has been really fun
is to have this new cast of characters
come on to the show in the form of Lena Waithe
and Vincent Cassel and Aaron Paul.
I'm such a fan of so many of the players
that come to hang out with us this season,
and it does feel, I'm still a nerd for these things,
I love television and film, and when I am presented
with someone on set that's in something that I love
that's iconic, like Aaron in "Breaking Bad,"
I'm like, "Oh my God, oh my God, he's there,"
you know? (laughs)
Like, I still am pinching myself to get to exist
inside of these narratives that have meant so much to me.
So I had a lot of favorite days just geeking out
on who I was getting to play with.
- Last one for you, and in that regard is,
you've been involved in so many different projects,
so many high-profile projects,
lots of nerdy worlds that you've
gotten to dabble in. - (laughs) Yeah.
- What separates "Westworld" from the rest?
What does this allow you to explore creatively,
not just as a performer, but as a thinker,
getting to come on set and getting to read
these scripts and getting to engage in it,
that you haven't gotten a chance
to explore in other material?
- Well, I think really asking, sort of the big question
that the show asks is, what is the nature of our humanity?
I think the show asks some really fascinating questions
about memory, about what freedom is.
Does it exist?
Does it exist in this modern world?
And I love those questions.
I think that that's the most profound thing.
Inside of just watching narratives that are entertaining,
I think if you can be entertained, meanwhile
contending with things that are fundamental
to just being a human and being alive,
to me, that's the best.
- Yeah.
- That's really and truly the best.
And then, obviously, because the show,
especially this season, we've had to work
a lot in the space of having to digitally enhance things,
I think it's such a beautiful way.
I mean, by and large, even though I exist
in some nerd worlds, I think the best marriage
of technology is always based on story and character,
that you can really paint a world,
and I think the show does that beautifully.
And then, inside of it, also, I think
if you're gonna tell stories about the future,
what responsibility do we have not just to present
the world as it is, but maybe as it should be?
And I think there's something inside
of this story, as dystopian as things can get sometimes,
I feel like you see these characters
really fighting for a sense of real
self-discovery and to really have agency,
and I think that's something that we continue
to do as humans, so I'll always be compelled
by watching characters do that and struggle for that.
- [Josh] Awesome, Tessa, thank you
so much! - Thank you so much.