Imaginary Worlds - The Westworld Experience

Episode Date: May 17, 2018

To promote season 2 of Westworld, HBO recreated the fictional Wild West town from the TV show just outside Austin at the SXSW festival, and they hired actors to play androids who think they're living in the Old West -- just like the androids on the TV show. The SXSW Westworld Experience was advertised as "Live Without Limits." Unfortunately, some of the guests took that slogan to heart. Featuring actors Alan Nelson, Liz Waters and Courtney Rose Kline. Also professors Noson Yanofsky, James South and Kim Engels discuss why an ancient Greek philosophical debate ties back to Westworld, the New York Yankees and whether you chose to buy a Cinnamon Danish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky, and as you can tell from the title of this episode, The Westworld Experience, I'll be talking about the show Westworld. suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky, and as you can tell from the title of this episode, The Westworld Experience, I'll be talking about the show Westworld. So as usual, spoilers ahead. Now, if you have not watched the show Westworld on HBO, but you'd like to know what it is about, the premise is that in the future, there is Wild West theme park, where the guests can interact with androids called hosts. But the hosts don't know that they're androids.

They think they exist in the Old West. And eventually it's revealed that Westworld is actually one of many parks of different themed worlds. But the main focus is this Wild West park, where the guests are encouraged to do anything they want to the hosts. Because while the hosts may feel pain or pleasure in the moment, afterwards they're brought back to the shop, their memories are wiped clean, their bodies are fixed up, and they are sent back out to interact with new guests, having no idea what happened to them. Or at least, that's the way Westworld had been working for decades until the first episode, when a few of the hosts suddenly started accessing old memories that should have been deleted. And as the hosts become self-aware, they have a lot of questions, to say the least. And eventually, they're just really pissed off.

Now, to promote season two, HBO actually built the town of Sweetwater, the fake western town in Westworld, just outside the South by Southwest festival this spring. And they hired actors to play the androids. And they hired actors to play the androids. Not the android characters from the show, played by famous stars, but new characters that the guests could interact with. This interactive theatrical exhibit was the buzz at South by Southwest. Even the stars of Westworld, like Evan Rachel Wood and James Marston, went through it. Not as their characters, but as themselves.

It's pretty crazy. It's like being on set a bit. It's a whole Wild West town inhabited by hosts and AI walking around with their own storylines. And you can just go around wherever you want. That is the voice of Sandy Newton, who was sitting on the couch with them during this interview. She also plays an android on the show. And unlike the other two actors,

she actually did not go through this live theatrical version of Westworld. And she was really curious about it. I'd love to interview the actors afterwards to find out, like, I mean, like, whether they were asked anything that was uncomfortable for them. You know what I mean? Because Westworld's pretty strange. Well, there you go. You get a dose of what actually. Yeah, exactly.

And wanting certain things. I actually... Yeah, exactly. Are there humans involved? Crazy requests. Are there humans involved? I wondered about that too, so I talked with a few of the actors. And it turns out there was a problem with some of the guests acting inappropriately with the actors, but I will get to that later. Because overall, the actors told me that this project was one of the best things they'd worked on in their entire careers. And it was very different from being an actor on the TV series,

because in the TV series, those actors take breaks, sometimes long breaks as they're setting up the next shot. But the actors in the live theatrical version of Westworld had to be in character for days. The day after the activation was done, I woke up the next morning, The day after the activation was done, I woke up the next morning and I just I almost couldn't remember how to be me. Liz Waters played one of the hosts. I couldn't remember like what it really was that I was supposed to be doing right then. And like, I mean, I was in a complete brain fog. The world that I had lived in for the last six days wasn't my world anymore.

And that's how involved everyone was. The audition process was really secretive. The actors were told they were auditioning for a theatrical show called Pride of Texas. They were all pretty shocked when they found out what it really was. They spent several days developing their characters with the show's director, David Wally, and figuring out what their relationships were to all the other hosts in town. They ran through it once with friends and family playing the guests. Then it was showtime. Now, the guests were people who just happened to be at South by Southwest. They were brought in just

like the guests are on the TV show. First, they got debriefed at the fictional corporation Delos, which looked exactly as it did on the TV show. And then the guests got on a train. And it was the actual train from the set of Westworld that they brought in. And they took it until they reached the town of Sweetwater, which they set up just outside Austin. And they set it up that way so that right when you came out of the train, it was literally all you could see was this world before you. And you couldn't see anything else.

So they blocked the rest of it with trees. So it's like even outside of that, seeing as how it was like a town outside of Austin, there's like an actual train behind us and some houses over there. But you couldn't see any of that. Now, because this happened at South by Southwest, there were a lot of celebrities among the guests. Alan Nelson played one of the hosts, and he says he will never forget Steven Spielberg's reaction when Spielberg stepped off the train into Sweetwater.

Let me tell you, to see Steven Spielberg, who, of course, is just part of everybody's mental landscape, get blown away by something, that was quite amazing. And he asked me, who's the director? And of course, you never break character. And I go, well, so I don't know what you mean by that, but we have a traveling hypnotist in town who seems to be able to charm us into saying or doing anything he wants to. And his name is David Wally.

David Wally, of course, was their director. Liz Waters says she was totally starstruck, but the fun part was that her character, a judgmental schoolteacher, turned out to be a really good vehicle to tease all these famous people. school teacher, turned out to be a really good vehicle to tease all these famous people. Her favorite moment was with Jeffrey Wright, who plays one of the company employees on the TV show. Yeah, Jeffrey Wright was one of the people I called out for imbibing in the devil's liquor. I said, sir, are you imbibing in the devil's liquor this evening? I do hope you are doing so in moderation. And he was like, oh, of course, ma'am, of course. I'm like, well, each man does have his own path after all. I just believe in virtue, oh, of course, ma'am, of course. I'm like, well, each man does have his own path after all. I just believe in virtue and family, of course. And he just like pointed at me

and was like, are you hearing this right now? But the celebrity that they actually had the most fun with was Elijah Wood, who was just at South by Southwest promoting something else. Alan actually gave a message for Elijah Wood to send to another host in town. And he immediately said, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. And I said, if you would go see Miss Joslyn over at the Coronado and tell her while I have pondered her invitation most carefully for the last several days, and it did make me blush a bit that I have finally reached a decision. And if you would tell her that Silent Allen has said, says yes, he does accept that invitation and we'll see her tonight. And he goes, yes, Miss Jocelyn, or not, we'll do it. But when Elijah Wood went looking for Miss

Jocelyn, he saw a wanted poster made up by the staff with his picture on it saying wanted for stealing a ring. This, of course, is a Lord of the Rings reference. And so I guess, you know, he was walking by the sheriff's and the sheriff was like, you. And he like looked over and saw his picture and he just took off running. Elijah Wood was chased around town until he found Miss Jocelyn. And Elijah goes, oh, by the way, Miss Jocelyn. And Elijah goes, oh, by the way, Miss Jocelyn, Silent Allen says that he has considered your invitation

and will see you tonight. You know, that blew her away. Now, there are other things to do at the Westworld experience. You could eat, drink, watch a shootout, or solve mysteries in this sort of interactive game. But the big draw were the actors themselves. And Liz Waters says the guests kept trying to get the actors to break character.

And if they asked you questions or tried to show you their cell phone or something that you wouldn't understand as a host, you would just say, it doesn't look like anything to me. Another thing that happened all the time is the guests would say to the hosts, freeze all motor functions. But on the show, only the lab technicians from the Delos Corporation have the power to do that. So I don't know why the guests thought they would have that power there. And there were actors playing Delos technicians wearing the red and white hazmat suits that we see in the TV show,

going up to the actors playing androids and saying, freeze all motor functions. I think one of them told me, I'm going to implant a memory from when you were eight years old and your grandmother brought you a batch of strawberries. And then she'd be like, increasing friendliness by 25%. One of my favorite moments was the very final scene. They freeze all motor functions for every single host.

And I remember there was a guy standing next to me and he's like filming it. And he like points the camera right on me. He's like, Oh my gosh, they're all frozen. Oh my God. Look at her. She's not even moving. Oh, she's not. Oh my gosh, she's frozen. And his friend had to be like, dude, she can still hear you. Like he almost had to be told that no, she's not really a robot. In a way, the actors were almost too good at convincing everyone else that they were robots. Because remember, Westworld is a place where you can do whatever you want to these robots without judgment. And you know, this live interactive show at South by Southwest was advertised with the

slogan, Live Without Limits. So people started behaving that way. I heard stories of guests that verbally abused the actors. I heard about a guest that kept trying to kiss the saloon girls in the mouth. One guy came in drunk and then started to shove me. At one point, he shoved me very hard. And so with the adrenaline that rushes through you in such a moment, I grabbed his arm and pinched down on the nerve that's in your upper arm. You could see his eyes just pop open and you see the thoughts just flooding through going, oh, shit, this really is a robot.

One guest actually stole a gun, a prop gun from one of the hosts. But that host was not just an actor. He was a professional stuntman. You know, that was a mistake. You don't mess with the stuntman. And you kind of see the fear in this guy's eyes where he immediately regretted that decision of taking someone's gun. Like he thought it'd be funny or whatever, like, oh, look, I got the gun. It's a world without limits. Oh, it's funny. But then, no, they're going to react the way that their real human reaction would be. It would be like, get your hands off my gun.

The actress Courtney Rose Klein played a host, but her character was more vulnerable than the characters that Liz and Alan played. And it was frustrating to Courtney because she couldn't scold a guest like Liz's character could, or be intimidating like Alan's character.

Like, there's this one lady who came up with a camera and another one who's interviewing, and she was like, do you feel like you're alive? And she's like, you realize you're not alive, right? And I'm like, what kind of stupid question is that? But she couldn't say that. She was also horrified as she watched a lot of the guests trash the general store. And she felt really bad for the actress playing the store owner.

Literally, there was people stealing potatoes that were in her store. At one point, somebody cut open a bag of sugar and stuck their hands in it. And she was like, why are you doing that? And the girl's like, I just wanted to see if it was real. She's like, well, you're gonna have to pay me for that. She's like, well, I don't have any money. And her boyfriend wound up paying for it. And they wound up carrying a five pound bag of sugar across the whole sweet water. Now, Courtney did have some nice interactions with the guests. In fact, one guest was so invested in her backstory, he tried to solve all of her personal issues with the other characters. Unfortunately, this guest did not realize

that the hosts run story loops. And when their story loop reset, the actors had to pretend they had never met him before. And all of his work resolving their personal conflicts was undone. Part of me wants to tell him it's okay. Thank you. But she was not going to tell him that and break character. So that was a nice experience, a little bittersweet. But Courtney says overall, she was disappointed by how many guests

did not care about the backstories the actors had developed. They just want to get drunk or rowdy. She actually set up a system with one of the actors who was playing a lab technician. So if a guest was ever harassing her, the lab technician would freeze her motor functions and pretty much tinker with her until the offensive guest went away. Because the first night, I literally had like

people trying to grab me by the skirt, really kind of a moment that disturbed me. I guess that they were somewhere else during the first loop. The second loop, a group of older men come up to me and they're like, hey, we hear you like older men. Mind if we could be your daddy for the night? And I was like, oh, my God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But again, those are the exceptions. Overall, the actors had a great experience. Most of the guests were a lot of fun to work with. But what's so interesting to me about those negative experiences is how much they reflect what happens on the TV show Westworld.

I mean, obviously it's not the same thing. The guests are not murdering the hosts as they do on the TV show. But the fact that people were acting so disrespectfully like this in real life was even more disturbing to me. It also gets to some of the key questions that Westworld, the TV show, has been asking from the beginning. Questions like, do you know who you are? I mean, do you really know how you would behave in any situation?

And if the answer is no, and you go looking for your true self, how do you know when you found it? But there's one philosophical puzzle that I always think about when I watch Westworld that I think gets to the heart of these questions around identity and how we see ourselves versus how the world sees us. Philosophy class begins just after the break. Okay, so we're going to switch gears here and get very meta because Westworld is a very meta show. I mean, it's a story about characters

in a story that discover that they're characters in a story. And that's led to a lot of think pieces online about all the different philosophical debates that Westworld taps into. But when it comes to this question of identity that all the characters are struggling with, this question of what makes you, you. I keep thinking about this old philosophical debate, which I've always found really fascinating. The ship of Theseus. Now I've heard two versions of this. The first one is that Theseus sailed around ancient Greece for about 30 years. And throughout his travels, he kept replacing the planks on his ship. And by the time

he returned to Athens, not a single piece of wood was the same. The other version of the story is that his travels were so legendary that people of Athens erected the ship of Theseus as a monument in the town square. But as time went on, the wood rotted. They kept replacing the wood until not a single plank was the same. Either way, the question is, if you replace every plank of wood in the ship of Theseus, is it still the same ship? And if not, when was the tipping point when it stopped being the ship of Theseus? And what is it now? But the main point is, the ship of Theseus has nothing to do with ships. It's about everything.

But the main point is the ship of thesis has nothing to do with ships. It's about everything. Nusan Yanovsky is a professor at Brooklyn College who has written about this philosophical paradox. So, for example, it's about a college. What makes a college a college? You know, after all, every 30 or 40 years, all the professors leave. Every four or five years or six years, all the students leave. You know, a college can move or something like that. Or what makes the New York Yankees the New York Yankees?

They've been around for about 120, 130 years. Their owners have changed. The players have changed. The fans have changed. Yankee Stadium has moved. Yeah, well, it's funny because I'm from Boston. Right. So you're angry at us Yankees.

Always, perpetually. But it's funny, though, because like the rivalry was feeling kind of dead. And then they got into a big brawl this year and everyone was so excited, like, oh, they still hate each other. And I'm like, who's they? Who's they? Right. It's not the same people. It's not the same players. And again, it's not even the same fans. Why is it the same thing? And of course, the real reason why people are interested in this idea is because it plays out with people. I mean, the cells in our body are constantly dying and being replaced. And on the show Westworld, this plays out literally. I mean, take Dolores, who's played by Evan Rachel Wood. She's one of the oldest androids at the park. Every single part of her has been replaced over and over again. Her storylines have changed,

her personality has changed. And now that she's self-aware, she's trying to figure out who the real Dolores is. Certainly wasn't the original version of her, so is it the version of Dolores she thinks she is now? Or a version she's evolving into? Under all these lives I've lived, something else has been growing. And I have one last role to play. Myself. Or take Maeve, who was another host played by Thandie Newton. When we first meet her, Maeve is the sort of no-nonsense madam at a saloon.

Glasses, Sherry. The good stuff. Not that horse piss you strain through your old curtains. But then she remembers one of her previous storylines when she was a homesteader with a young daughter. And eventually Maeve becomes obsessed with finding that girl. Even though that girl may not even remember her. You're looking for your old kid? How can you even access...

Are you going to help me or not? I am. I absolutely am. I could write down the directions for you. How very kind of you. And I say this because you seem really distraught and, well, awake. Your daughter, she's just a story. Something we programmed. She's just a story, something we programmed. She's not real.

Kim Ingalls teaches philosophy at Molloy College. That seemed to be something constant that kind of held her together. You know, her self was kind of anchored that way. And her first independent decision is to kind of value the possibility of reuniting with her daughter over the certainty of her escape. And I think that shows that, you know, these experiences with her daughter, whether they were fabricated or not, are like a very key part to who she is and kind of anchor her together. James South teaches philosophy at Marquette University. He and Kim both contributed to a book called The Philosophy of Westworld. Yeah, and I think that's important because I

think when we start thinking about Ship of Theseus examples in terms of human beings, one of the key things that holds human beings together over time, despite the, you know, in my case, my hair turning from brown to gray and my, you know, gaining some weight and looking very different than I looked when I was five. I have memories of when I was five. And that anchors me to myself, as it were. So that's one answer to the ship of Theseus. Forget the body. What makes us us is our minds and our memories.

What makes us us is our minds and our memories. But people's personalities can change after a traumatic event, or if they have amnesia or Alzheimer's. I mean, for example, my grandmother. She had a very biting, sarcastic sense of humor, which I thought was hilarious when I was a kid. But when she developed Alzheimer's, she became very sweet and childlike. She was actually very happy in that state of mind, but it was heartbreaking because she didn't feel like my nana anymore.

Kim says it doesn't matter if my grandmother was sarcastic or sweet. She was always my nana because I was always her grandson. Those are facts that can't be changed. Because I think who you are is not just, it involves your relationships with other people and kind of how you relate to others. And I think those are part of your core essence. And I think if you still have those relationships, even if they're different, you're still going to have those ties. I think you can still say that they're the same person. And so that's another answer to the ship of Theseus. You're not your mind or your body. What makes you you is your

function in life. Like going back to Westworld, Dolores will always be an android that will always define her relationship to human beings, whether she's serving their needs or killing them in cold blood. As Kim put it, this is your core essence. Knowing what I know about Kim, hearing her say the word core essence is very strange to me. Wait, why? Because she wrote a dissertation on Sartre, and Sartre doesn't believe in core essences. No, actually, he does believe. He does think there is something constant in which he calls facticity. And he says those are things about yourself that you can't change. He says, you know, where you're born, you know, who your parents are.

He says those things you can't change. So like you do have an essence to that extent of what, you know, Sartre says, you know, you have facticity. There is something that roots you as you. But what really makes you you in Sartre's ideas is kind of what you do and kind of what your function is and kind of what purpose you have towards what goals you direct your behavior. And that can change. But Westworld threw another curveball in there. Because it turns out the hosts are not accessing their old deleted memories by accident. Somebody has been tinkering with their programming. Maeve cannot believe this, even when she's given evidence by Jeffrey Wright's character Bernard, who oversees the maintenance of the hosts.

These things you're doing, have you ever stopped to ask why you're doing them? You said yourself. I've been stuck in this shithole for so long, I decided to get out. No, you haven't. Someone altered your storyline. They gave you a new one. Escape. No. It's not possible.

These are my decisions. No one else's. I planned all of this. No, you didn't. You can even see the steps you're supposed to follow. You, recruiter, are the host to help you. Then you make your way to the train. Then, when you reach the main...

Bullshit! No one's controlling me. Newsan Yanovsky says this question of whether the hosts are acting out of their free will or following a script also reflects the way we behave in everyday life. Are we programmed to have certain beliefs or are we programmed to think certain things? I don't know.

My mother programmed me to help little old ladies cross the streets when I was younger. So when I help a little old lady cross the street now, am I doing what I wanted to do or am I pre-programmed to do it? Do I have, forget, forget about Dolores, which is a fictional character. Do I have free will? I always like that there's a, uh, in Avenue J on Brooklyn, there's a, there's a bakery that makes the most delicious cinnamon Danish. Okay. And I have this two opposing feelings. On the one hand, I really want that cinnamon Danish. On the other hand, I'm health conscious and I don't want to eat too much. Okay. So let's say I walk away from the bakery without getting the cinnamon

danish. Did I win? You know, which part of me won? I'm not one person. Right. The question is, who's me? Who's me? Now that question of who is me is at the heart of another debate in a totally different science fiction universe. And this may seem like a tangent moving away from Westworld, but it does tie directly back into these questions. It's a philosophical debate happening among Star Trek fans around the transporter. Now, when Captain Kirk is on a planet and he says, Scotty, beam me up. Scotty, beam me up. Scotty is atomizing Captain Kirk. The James T. Kirk that materializes back on the Enterprise is a copy of the Captain Kirk that was on the planet. And if Kirk is beaming around the galaxy

in every episode, are we following the adventures of the same character? A lot of Star Trek fans say no, and they even came up with a new name for the transporter room. They call it the Suicide Box. I had never thought about this until I came across this theory online,

and it makes a lot of sense to me, but I also find it really disturbing. But James South and Kim Ingalls don't see it that way. Again, I would point back to the role of memory, because the Captain Kirk that materializes on a planet from the Enterprise might be physically a different Captain Kirk, but he has all the memories of Captain Kirk. I mean, can we play that with the ship of Theseus metaphor as well in terms of the idea that, you know, there are little deaths that happen in your life, you know, that you sort of can be resurrected from or that you just keep going and turning into something that's different, but the same.

Yeah, actually, this idea of little deaths, I think that you can bring that back to William and the man in black. Kim is referring back to Westworld. On the show, the Man in Black is an investor in the park, played by Ed Harris, who goes around hunting robots for sport and trying to uncover mysteries left behind by the park designers. Remember, you're the one who said this is the only world that matters. And you were right. So I took your advice and I bought this is the only world that matters, and you were right. So I took your advice, and I bought this world.

This world doesn't belong to you. But it does. Buy a majority share, and business is booming. Eventually, we learn in a series of flashbacks that the man in black used to be an earnest young man named William, played by the actor Jimmy Simpson. And the show has been exploring how William evolved into this grizzled, vicious man in black. And sometimes they feel like two different characters. And the only thing they have in common is the fact that the man in black remembers having once been this young, compassionate guy. You know, when he says that, you know, out there among the dead, I found, he found something

else himself. So I think when you have what Sartre calls an existential rupture, actually part of you kind of dies in terms of it's not there anymore. You know, you're so changed. So I don't know if any of you have had really like formative life experiences, but sometimes you go through something and you're just like never the same after that happens. You can kind of almost categorize your life into a before and after. I was actually just having a conversation with somebody the other day of a friend that I had.

And then he went through some life experiences and he seemed unrecognizable to his former self later on. I just said, you know, he just seems like I use the words. I'm like, he seems like a totally different person. Not like I don't even recognize him. I don't even know who he is. Use the words. I'm like, he seems like a totally different person. I'm like, I don't even recognize him. I don't even know who he is. These questions about, you know, what makes us us over time,

they affect our relationships and how we think about the people that we know and interact with and how we think about ourselves. Which brings me back to Star Trek. Because Star Trek has actually had a number of episodes exploring the philosophical ramifications of the transporter. My favorite example, because I love Next Generation, is an episode called Second Chances, where we learn that the character of Will Riker has a doppelganger. Years ago, Riker had beamed down to a desolate planet. And when he came back, the transporter accidentally created a version of him on that planet and a version of him that left the planet. I am Will Riker. I don't know who or what made it back to the Potemkin that day, but it wasn't me.

And the two Rikers discover that they've evolved to become very different people based on their circumstances. But what I find so interesting about this episode is that the only thing that makes us the audience believe that the Riker we've been following all these years on the show is the quote real Riker and not a copy of Riker is the fact that everybody in the enterprise thinks of him as the real Riker. Good luck Will. I actually thought I might go with the name Thomas. Your middle name. I guess we really are different. I never really cared for that name. And Newsonianovsky thinks that's actually the answer to this puzzle of the ship of Theseus. Well, what makes something something? And the answer is, we make it.

In other words, we human beings, the Yankees don't really exist. You know, we human beings say the Yankees exist. We agree to it. You're from Boston, so you hate us. I was about to say, I wish they didn't. Right. But, you know, we kind of, you know, the Yankees are, you'll excuse the expression, a social construct. It's something that society decides what the Yankees are.

Same thing with the ship of Theseus. Yeah. You know, we decided this is the ship, and if it looks like the ship, and if we gradually change parts of the ship, it's still the ship. In other words, you are who you say you are. If the rest of the world doesn't agree with you, that's a whole other issue. But again, that is his answer. This is a philosophical quandary that philosophers have been debating for centuries. And Westworld does not present any simple answers either. The amazing thing to me about Westworld is how it has inspired all these philosophical debates

that I don't think people would be having if they weren't watching this show or taking a philosophy class in college. And I think it taps into the fact that we're all on story loops. Some of these story loops are created by us. Sometimes they're created by society. But either way, after a while, you just tend to go through the motions. And every so often, it's good to stop and reflect if this is the version of you that you really want to be.

It's easy. All you have to do is freeze all motor functions. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Alan Nelson, Liz Waters, Courtney Rose Klein, Nusan Yanovsky, Kim Engels, and James South. Imaginary Worlds is part of the Panoply Network. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emolinski and imagineworldspod. My website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.