Westworld Star Discusses ‘Liberating’ Nude Scenes

Of all the fascinating concepts touched on in Westworld, one of the more notable ideas is the way nudity was used to help convey that the Android hosts were possessions and not sentient beings. On the performance side, however, Westworld actress Thandie Newton has a different take.

As shared by Variety, in an interview with Oprah for PBS’s Actors on Actors, Newton said the nudity expected of her role was liberating.

In a clip from their conversation, Oprah, who Newton co-starred with in the 1998 film Beloved, directly asks, “Did this role fill something else for you?

Newton, very confidently responds, “It was liberation.”

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She then went on to explain, “You know what it felt like; It felt like having that fourth baby. It was a moment of such intense self-affirmation. Not for me ‘Thandie,’ but… female power.”

She said that this was the first time she’d felt this way about being nude on-screen, saying, “I hadn’t felt like that before, and it’s ironic that I was standing there stark naked for a lot of it, because I felt more in control than I’ve ever done. Because I sad ‘Yes’ to this. I said, ‘Yes, I will stand here with nothing on and I will speak these words. Yes, I will.’”

In addition to her comments about the nudity, Newton also praised her character’s role in the show’s story.

As the clip ends, she says, “I was so committed to this character’s trajectory. I felt that it had secrets to how we need to survive as a humanity, which is to fight for the truth.”

At this time, there is no official premiere date for the second season of Westworld, but it will launch sometime in 2018.

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