Riding high in the simulated Wild West

Riding high in the simulated Wild West

Westworld's James Marsden on being a robo-cowboy, what he really thinks of Richard Branson's spaceship and Siri

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE
Riding high in the simulated Wild West
James Marsden as Teddy Flood in a scene from today's Westworld finale. photos courtesy of hbo

Looking all parts American perfection and stomaching spicy dishes surprisingly well (according to his bodyguard) for a first-timer in Singapore, James Marsden was in the Lion City last week to promote the season finale of HBO's Westworld. As the human equivalent of goodness and sunshine, it becomes apparent that the Hollywood dreamboat is fittingly well-known for his nice-guy roles (in X-Men, The Notebook, Enchanted, Hairspray) because he is also such a person in real life. In fact, it all feels satisfyingly in-character when the 43-year-old admits that he loves Frank Capra movies and that the violence in Westworld isn't gratuitous.

Of course, it doesn't get any more Americana than what he's playing most lately: a gunslinger called Teddy Flood -- albeit a robotic one mainly fashioned to serve the human guests who visit the futuristic frontier theme park Westworld. In his role, Marsden is expectedly heroic, nice and good-looking, but these traits could get murky as his character grows and the series delves into the darker sides of what humans are as a species and where we're headed next.

As the Western-sci-fi extraordinaire wraps up its first season today, Life tunes into the mind of the man who stars as one of the show's main characters, sans any glitches and computed censoring.

What do you love most about playing your character?

As an eight-year-old boy who loved dressing up as cowboys and running around playing that, I get to live a childhood fantasy. Being an actor on this show is almost like stepping onto Westworld -- you get to learn how to ride a horse, how to shoot a gun, wear the costumes and saunter through the Wild West town. It's a really exciting journey that I've been on.

Are you attached to your character?

James Marsden in Singapore. Vamos Photography

Yes, as an actor you always try to find the similarities of the character that you're playing with yourself. There's always a reason why you respond to a character when you read a script. We're very much alike just as far as morality, general goals and who we want to be as human beings. I think we both like having fun and riding horses and firing guns but at the end of the day, you want to be a decent person with respect for others and you want to have that romance in your life. Teddy definitely does with Dolores and so do I.

When you decide to go for a project, is it for the story or director?

It's all of that. I mainly focus on script and director. This was Joy and Nolan and J.J. Abrams and I knew of the original Westworld film. To me, my career objective is to work with the most talented people out there. I've never had any snobbery about format. It's never film over TV. It was always about content and where the interesting stories, roles and directors were. I'd follow that no matter if it's a web series, HBO or $300 million (10.7 billion baht) studio film. It's rare to see a project like this come together -- it's always you get this and this but you don't get this. But here you have it all: amazing cast, best showrunner in the business, an ambitious show that is multifaceted and multilayered, and to be part of that, it only comes along every so often.

How has acting as Teddy changed you professionally?

I think as you get older in life, you look for roles with more depth. Teddy's relatively shallow from the beginning -- he's a robot and he hasn't gained sentience yet -- but that continues to expand. As I get older, I look for roles that have more maturity to them, with more interesting, flawed and conflicted characters. Teddy is one of those characters and it's also a different thing I've never done before, concerning playing an artificial-intelligence [being]. There's so many ways to do it -- you could choose 20 different degrees of humanness. The ultimate goal for being an artist of any kind is you affect and inspire people -- you make them laugh, cry, upset, nervous or scared. And the worst is when you don't affect them at all.

Has your opinion of robots changed after playing this role?

Yes, I'm beginning to learn more. I was relatively ignorant going into this about autonomy and AI. I can't even get Siri to work; how is Siri going to take over the world, you know? We're a long way from robots taking over but I learned that there are advancements in technology with AI that I didn't know about that are further down the line. And the idea of this entity becoming smarter and more resilient than us even if it was our creation can have consequences. It's changed the way I think of them in that regard, but I'm not necessarily scared of them yet. When all my voice-command stuff in my car and Siri works, then I'll start to be worried!

Would you go to Westworld if someone builds a park like it one day?

It's like when someone asks you if you could go up on Richard Branson's spaceship and you go, 'Well if I had the opportunity … I guess I'd have to'. I don't know if I'd want to, but I'd have to. It certainly would challenge your character -- who are you really, when there are no rules and consequences? I'd like to go with my close friends and see how they behave and decide if we could still be friends anymore. I guess if I answer from my eight-year-old self, it would be fun to go to the Wild West, ride through these beautiful plateaus on horses and get in gunfights. If someone paid the $40,000 for me I'd go.

Are you ever scared of getting killed off, knowing HBO has a knack for doing so to its characters?

I don't think about those things. I think about the here and now and the fact that I'm a part of something that kind of has taken the world by storm at the moment. I always tell people the best way to watch this show is to let it unfold in its natural, organic time and to not try to figure everything out. We can stress and have anxiety about what's next because by nature we're nervous beings and fear drives us a lot. But I don't really like to pontificate too much about what's to come -- I try to think about now and try to enjoy it. That was way too philosophical. No, the answer is of course I'm scared!


The final episode of Westworld airs today at 9am, with a same-day encore at 8pm exclusively on HBO. Viewers can watch the whole season again on Dec 24 and 25 from 9am on HBO Signature, while the weekly encore starts on Jan 19 on HBO Signature.

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