Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood is just as gutted about never finding out how the cancelled HBO show would've ended. So much so, in fact, she loses sleep over it...
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor, who famously played sentient host Dolores (and later, Christina) in the hit sci-fi show, said it was "devastating" to learn that HBO were pulling the plug on the twisty, mind-bending series before creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan had a chance to wrap things up. According to Wood, and contrary to critics' belief, the twosome "weren't writing it as we went along", and always had a specific conclusion in mind – one they never shared with the cast.
"We were just always told, 'We know how the show ends,' when we started," Wood explained. "They had an idea, and we were all just on a bed of nails waiting to see and hear what the conclusion of this was. What it all meant.
"We didn't get to have that and so after building an arc and a character for almost 10 years and not getting the payoff at the end to see where it was all going – I think for us and the audience, it was awful in a lot of ways."
HBO announced that it would not be moving forward with Joy and Nolan's planned fifth season way back in November 2022, despite season 4 being well-received – and called the best since its first – by fans. At the time, the network cited cost-cutting as a reason behind the decision.
Also starring the likes of Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris, James Marsden, Tessa Thompson, Aaron Paul, and Thandiwe Newton, Westworld season 4, subtitled 'The Choice', sees Thompson's Charlotte Hale take control of Delos and, subsequently, the world as she replaces world leaders with obedient hosts. Later, she unleashes a bioengineered virus that makes humans unable to disobey her and other hosts' orders.
Wood's Christina, with Dolores having been shut down in the season 3 finale, is a video game writer, who handles the storylines of NPCs, non-player characters she later discovers are real-life, subdued humans. Elsewhere, host William (Harris) sparks an all-out war between newly liberated humans and hosts around the globe, while, Bernard (Wright) and Maeve (Newton) futilely try to prevent it from bringing about the end times.
It concludes with Hale uploading Christina's consciousness into the Sublime, a digital-style nirvana, per Bernard's request, where she realizes she is a reprogrammed and last true version of Dolores. With humanity on the brink of an unprecedented extinction, Dolores decides to simulate "one last game" in the Sublime to determine if any being, human or host, may yet be preserved in "the new world".
"I asked the creators after we got canceled, 'Can you please just tell me how you're going to end?' And they wouldn't tell me," added Wood. "I think because, I don't know, maybe somehow, someway, in some iteration we'll get to finish it, but I still don't know. It does still keep me up at night."
For more, check out our guide to the most exciting new TV shows heading our way.
