Theres a moment in Westworlds Season Two finale when Jeffrey Wrights Bernard—the audiences disoriented robotic proxy—has to step out of a boat and wordlessly process his surroundings. Though it was among the last scenes to air, it was shot, like much of the finale, out of order—and a perplexed Wright had to make absolutely sure he knew when in Westworlds multiple timelines this moment was happening.
After a 20-minute call with series co-show-runner Jonathan Nolan in the blazing Lake Powell heat, the actor finally had it sorted out. Co–executive producer Frederick Toye watched, stunned, as Wright delivered a completely different performance in Take Two—all without saying a word. In a show full of complicated mysteries, Wrights performance might be Westworlds most impressive sleight of hand.
Confusion is nothing new for a Westworld actor, but Wright has always had an extra layer of challenge. As viewers learned late in Season One, hes playing two roles: the human Arnold in one timeline, and his synthetic doppelgänger, Bernard, in another. And Wright was asked to repeat his Season One acting subterfuge in Season Two with, if you can believe it, another complicating wrinkle: this time, the actor also played an earlier version of Bernard who was being taught by Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) to act like Arnold.
“The intent is not to toy with people; the intent is to take people along for a ride.”
Its enough to make anyones head leak cortical fluid. “That might have been the most delicate kind of physical math that I had to do,” Wright says. “A character trying to evolve into another character, and at the same time he is the character, and then hes not because hes making missteps. And so it was, really … it took a little bit of puzzling through to get there.”
Wright had to pull this off while somehow remaining the most human and emotionally accessible character on the show—no mean feat for a part-time robot. For this, he says, hes learned to trust Nolan and Westworld co-show-runner Lisa Joy. “I try to mitigate my expectations with this show, because theres no getting ahead of Jonah and Lisa, and its just an attempt at masochism and confusion to even try. I kind of surrender to my writers.”
And while Wright gets that some viewers may remain disoriented, he also sees the value in that. “The frustrations are understandable—but I also think that we tend to want everything, you know? We want to be gratified, we want to be in control. The intent is not to toy with people; the intent is to take people along for a ride.” Wrights performance is a large part of why audiences still tune in to Westworld, twisty as it gets. “One things for sure,” Joy says. “Whatever magic Jeffrey was working, it worked.”
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Joanna RobinsonJoanna Robinson is a Hollywood writer covering TV and film for VanityFair.com.
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