Thandie Newton Says Harrowing 'Westworld' Scene Is Like a Death Penalty
TV

The actress who plays Maeve says, 'You could be on the dark net for two minutes and you would see s**t going down that makes 'Westworld' look like a tea party with Clifford the big red dog.'

AceShowbiz - "Westworld" aired its second episode on Sunday, October 9 titled "Chestnut". Maeve is yet another robot to begin an awakening in Westworld and Thandie Newton has some comments on her character.

[SPOILER ALERT!] Maeve learned a secret technique to help her wake from nightmares and ended up waking up in the real world, on an operating table, right in the middle of a surgical procedure. Freaking out, she escaped nude into the maze of operating rooms and rooms filled with bodies and open-air platforms before being captured by her handlers.

"Isn't that just one of the worst things imaginable?" Thandie tells THR of the harrowing scene, "It's right up there with waking up in a coffin underground. It's one of those hideous things you hope never happens to you: mid-operation, you wake up. Her waking up was a result of the sloppiness of the experts, when they're not dealing with actual human beings."

Thandie compares the scene to the death penalty, saying, "I've read quite a lot about the death penalty and how barbaric it is. Every time I read about someone who has been executed, it's a botched execution, and it happens again and again. It's supposed to be a humane way of dying. That's the whole point - it's supposed to be humane."

"One guy that I'm reading about in Bryan's book ('Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption'), it took him almost an hour to die. I feel like the word 'humane' needs to be rethought quite seriously. If that's supposed to be our standard for goodness and ethics, we need to change it," she continues.

After Maeve awakened in the real world, she heard her surgeons talking shop in vulgar terms. "We have an ability as humans to turn our empathy on and off," Thandie explains, "We are fed so much visual stimuli, and it's at the point where we have to be told if it's real or not. We can find ourselves watching a horrific execution on television, and you might think that it's fiction, and as a result, you won't feel anything."

She adds, "But if you're told it's real, that it's actually a snuff thing you just saw, then what? You feel delayed concern? We have been programmed, and we are being currently programmed, to turn off our sensitivity. Sensitivity is one of the things that keeps us alive. Our sensitivity to noise, our sensitivity to danger ... we're turning it off. Let's hope we never find ourselves in a situation where we have to be all eyes ears and senses alerted, because there's something f***ed up going on and we need to look after ourselves."

Thandie weighs in on showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's vision of the violent world of "Westworld". "When you realize that the people involved in the show care a lot, that they really care about the robots and the characters and humanity, that's why they're revealing this stuff," she shares, "You could be on the dark net for two minutes and you would see s**t going down that makes Westworld look like a tea party with Clifford the big red dog."

"Do you know what happens in the world? Do you understand what has to happen for you to cue up your iPhone f***ing 7? Do you understand the cost to other people in the world? You think these robots are being treated badly? Look what's happening in the world. Question the nature of your f***ing reality - because your reality is tied to every other human being's reality," she adds.

"Westworld" airs Sundays at 9 P.M. on HBO.

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