Westworld has added actor Aaron Paul to its cast for its upcoming third season, Deadline reports.
Paul’s role is being kept secret, but is reported to become a series regular.
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Along with Westworld, the former Breaking Bad star is a series regular on Apple’s upcoming Are You Sleeping, which will see him star alongside Octavia Spencer and Lizzy Caplan. The series is an anthology and the cast has one-year deals for Season 1.
Paul won three Emmys for his role on Breaking Bad and also recently starred in Hulu’s original series The Path.
Since its premiere in 2016, Westworld has become a hit for HBO, with the sci-fi drama racking up 21 Emmy nominations for its second season, which ran this year. Its third season is expected to debut in 2020. Series star Ed Harris previously told Entertainment Weekly that filming for Season 3 will not start until June 2019, noting that he has “no idea” where the show is heading.
“I don’t even know if I’m in it or not,” he said. “I figure I am? But I don’t know in what capacity, and I don’t know what the what will be happening. We’ll find out.”
The third season of the show will continue to explore the evolution of the theme park’s hosts and their move into the human world. Due to the multiple time jumps that have already taken place, it’s currently unclear which characters will return, as flashbacks and flash forwards mean that almost anyone can appear at any given time, and viewers may not even be aware of which time period they’re watching on screen.
Westworld is based on Michael Crichton’s novel, as well the 1973 movie of the same name and was developed for television by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.
The end of Season 2 saw Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) escape the park in the host body of Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), and Nolan told Entertainment Weekly that leaving the park has been a long time coming.
“We’re very excited about where the third season goes,” Nolan shared. “It’s been a long build-up to get outside the park. And we’re incredibly excited about what that looks like and sounds like and what exactly our hosts discover out there.”
Dolores left the park with a handful of host consciousnesses in her purse, sparking theories about which hosts will return, something Nolan declined to reveal.
“It’s a large ensemble cast and sadly we’re saying goodbye to some people at the end of this season,” he said. “But as always with this show, who remains and who doesn’t is something we’re having a lot of fun with. There’s going to be a bit of a wait for a third season but we want to surprise and hopefully delight people with the way things progress.”
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