Not unlike Game of Thrones before it, Westworld, HBO’s other flagship fantasy series, isn’t one to skimp on violence.
Throughout its 10-part debut, which became the most-watched first season of any HBO original show in history, Westworld blew the doors off with a deeply provocative, multi-layered story of human indulgence and artificial intelligence, not to mention the anarchy that can ensue when those two things are at odds with one another. These violent delights have violent ends, after all.
But in anticipation of season 2, star Ed Harris spoke with Collider and revealed that shooting the new season has been almost just as crazy as the events that we see on screen. Talking about how hectic the scheduling has been, the actor said:
“So far, we’ve shot some from episode 1, episode 2, some from episode 4, some from episode 10. They’re committed to having the scripts done to shoot so we’re done by Christmas. I’m glad that I am not a person who’s trying to schedule the days of filming on this thing, because it’s insane. Sometimes you’ll have two, three different episodes being shot. Different crews, different locations; I don’t know how they get it all done.”
Reflecting on what it was like making the first season, he said that it was actually worse back then:
“We shot the pilot three years ago, two and a half years ago, and then we started the season it was supposed to be done Christmastime, but we stopped early November — we shut down because they didn’t have their last few scripts, they weren’t happy with them.”
Along with Ed Harris, the vast majority of the season 1 cast are expected to return back to the titular park, with Talulah Riley and Louis Hertham being bumped up the food chain to series regulars. Anticipation is gradually building, to be sure, but the network will have to pull out some pretty serious stops to top what they managed in the gripping first season.
We’ll see what they came up with sometime in 2018, when Westworld season 2 premieres on HBO.
