AUSTIN, Texas—”We can’t just come to SXSW with Westworld,” said Jonah Nolan, co-creator of the hit HBO show, within the last 10 minutes of the cast and crew’s South by Southwest conference keynote. “So we have a little something at the end to leave you with a bit of optimism; Westworld isn’t a terribly optimistic show unless you’re a robot.”
Nolan, co-creator Lisa Joy, and the main cast including leads Evan Rachel Wood (Dolores) and Thandie Newton (Mae) had just spent the better part of an hour hyping the show’s upcoming second season. There was sneak peek footage shown that Nolan (unsuccessfully it turns out) pleaded to stay within the room and celebrations of a show that grapples with modern-day themes of female empowerment or the dangers of AI. But then, a moment foreshadowed in a Friday night tweet finally came to fruition.
“As a kid, I spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking about spaceflight,” Nolan began. “I watched Super 8 movies of the Saturn launch, and that seems to have gone away a little bit. I’m passionate about it, but it was our grandparents who went to the moon and we haven’t gone back in our lifetime.