Created for television by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the HBO series Westworld is back for Season 3, as it continues its exploration of artificial consciousness and the question of free will. Now set in the futuristic present day of 2058, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is out in the real world and digging deeper into all of the unanswered questions from the past two seasons, and things are bound to get very interesting once Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), who’s recently been reset, figures out just what she’s up to.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Jeffrey Wright talked about what he had a specific understanding of versus what he had vague knowledge about when it came to Season 3, how much more story they might have to tell, the baby steps Bernard is taking when it comes to his own consciousness, playing detective for the audience and himself, and what he’s most impressed with, when it comes to making the show. He also talked about the evolution of his career, along with how he views the place of Jim Gordon in the larger world of The Batman, which he was filming when production was shut down, due to the current state of the world.

Collider: This is such an interesting season, exploring the world outside of the parks. When it came time to do Season 3 of this show, did co-showrunners Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy meet with you, or call you to talk about what they wanted to do? How much of the season arc and your character arc did they tell you, prior to doing the season?

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Image via HBO

JEFFREY WRIGHT: We had a very specific understanding that we were leaving the park and that we were now stepping into the role of guests in that in the new world that would become our park. As the show tends to do, we were recasting a mirror, in a way that flips the narrative, inside out. So, we understood that our characters were now the guests. But we had a much more vague understanding of what the implications of that would be. We become more aware, as we get scripts, every week. We didn’t really speak too specifically about where we would go. They like to keep us going and keep us making our way gingerly down the rabbit hole of the show.

Do you feel that the show has shifted its approach to twists and reveals a bit, especially after a bunch of fans had guessed that your character was a host, pretty early on in Season 1?

WRIGHT: I don’t know if there’s been a shift in the approach, at all. The show evolves, from episode to episode and season to season. I think the show still aspires to be complex and, to some extent, challenging, and requires focus, and can’t just be gratuitous background noise for the audience. So, the elements of discovery and reveals will continue, but they will continue in different ways. I don’t think that we have been or ever will be apologetic about that, in any regard.

Have you been told how many more seasons are planned, for the story that they have to tell?

WRIGHT: Yeah, I know how many seasons they had, originally, in their large brains. They have an arc that they built from, at the start.

Beyond this, could there be more than one more season?

WRIGHT: There very well could be, yeah. That’s certainly was the intent, from the start.

Have you been told what the end of the series is?

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Image via HBO

WRIGHT: Oh, no, of course not. While there is a very detailed blueprint for the storytelling, what’s wonderful about a long-form series like this is that they do reshape themselves, as the writing unfolds and the performances unfold. There’s no source material for our show, so the possibilities remain fairly wide open and fluid. The only restrictions are the vast mad imaginations of Jonah and Lisa.

It seems like Bernard is trying to figure out what’s going on, just as much as the viewers are. The viewers understand that Dolores has a clear mission, but does Bernard understand what that mission is, at this point, or is that something that he’s still trying to seek out?

WRIGHT: Bernard is somewhat disadvantaged, in that he’s been freshly created anew. And so, in some ways, he’s retaking baby steps of his own consciousness. He continues on this journey of self-discovery, in a new way. He’s also discovering this new world and, at the same time, figure out Dolores’ intent, and Dolores is a couple of steps out the door, ahead of him. He’s very much a proxy detective, in some ways for the audience, but also for himself, directly.

He also has a bit of a sidekick this season with Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), and he’s even gone so far as to give him the directive to protect him, at all costs. What does Bernard think is coming, if he feels the need to ensure that he’ll have that protection?

WRIGHT: Well, certainly he knows that he’s been scapegoated. He knows that he’s a fugitive and a wanted man, so he’s vulnerable to that. He’s uncertain about what Dolores is up to, so he’s vulnerable to that. He’s just looking for allies, from the newly sentient synthetic side to support him and work with him, toward what end, we don’t know yet, but it’s for that larger intent, which he’s still recovering.

You’ve had a long and acclaimed career, and you’ve done many memorable projects and roles, but you’re getting to do some especially cool stuff, right now. What’s it like to be at this stage of your life and career, getting to do things like Westworld, the Bond franchise, a Wes Anderson movie (The French Dispatch), and The Batman. Would the younger you, who was just starting out as an actor, think that’s all just really cool?

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Image via Sandro Baebler

WRIGHT: The younger me was doing some pretty cool stuff, as well. My career has grown and evolved since then, but the younger me began, essentially, with Angels in America and Basquiat. I was seeking out plays or scripts that spoke to me and touched me and called to me. To sustain that is not an easy thing. It’s not easy, within our business, to find collaborators that are really satisfying to work with, and by that I don’t mean easy to work with, I mean really nutritious partnerships that are challenging and that you can grow from. There are many times that you get into relationships in this business that are exactly the opposite, and it can be really stifling and painful. You can find yourself in really cynical places, in this business. So, I have tried to put myself in the best position, as I possibly could. Now, the things that you seek out change, as you get older and you have kids. There was a period, beginning in the early 2000s, where I got a little disenchanted with the business, and I veered off for almost 10 years and became more focused on doing other work outside of acting. I still did smaller parts, here and there, but I was more focused on the work that I was doing in Sierra Leone. Then, there came a time where I had to circle back to my day job. Since then, I’ve been really fortunate to find that they were collaborators out there that wanted to work with me, and whose work I admired and whose writing I admired. And so, I’ve had the opportunity to choose from a pretty diverse venue of projects. That has happened over time, but it’s akin to what I was trying to do earlier. I just have more available now. I’ve enjoyed that. The choices that I’ve made have felt good, primarily because the collaborations have been really, really great, and the people that I’m working with are people that I’m trusting and are really smart, and build respectful relationships and do good and interesting work. I do have to say that I’ve been on the road a lot, these last five or so years, and I just got back to Brooklyn, about 12 days ago (this interview was conducted on March 27th), after we shut down in London on The Batman. So, while I’m obviously concerned about what’s going on globally with this pandemic, it has given me an opportunity to slow down and come back home, and focus on the primary things, in a way that I’m trying to make the best of.

When it comes to The Batman, how would you say that your James Gordon compares to previous on screen iterations of that character?

WRIGHT: There have been some really wonderful actors who have played this role. Gary Oldman, who I first worked with on Basquiat, is one of my absolute, very specific inspirations, early on, as a young actor. He inhabits a shelf unto himself, in my regard. So, I’m pretty stoked to have been asked to play a role that he played, and other great actors, but I don’t think that a comparison would be justified. The reason being is because what’s wonderful about these iterations of Batman is that they go back to 1939, and there’s been an evolution of these characters, since the beginning. The characters and the stories have reflected the times and social dynamics, in which they were created. As far as the films go, the characters, I feel, are very much specific to the interpretation of Gotham. And so, what I do is going to be very specific to Matt Reeves’ vision of Gotham, and it’s going to be reflective of what Robert Pattinson’s Batman is going to be. To pluck one character out of the whole, is a forced idea. All of us are working together to create a tone and a language and an energy and a vibe that is specific to our film. That’s what we were in the middle of doing when the alarm sounded that at least we Americans needed to get the hell out of there, so that we could get back home. That’s where we are right now, very much in the middle of things.

What has most surprised you, when it comes to what it takes to be a part of Westworld and pull off what this show requires?

WRIGHT: I don’t know if I’ve been surprised by anything. What I’m most impressed by is the unrelenting optimism that our showrunners employ, in pulling this thing off. It’s pretty massive, in scale, it’s multi-faceted, and it exists in many layers. As with any film or show of this magnitude, it takes a lot of hands to pull it together. This year, it took three continents to pull it off. They work in a way that is so clever, in that they embrace challenge and limitation and surprise in the process and wrap themselves around it and convert it into something else that’s needed to push us forward. There’s never a hint of limitation. They just exhibit wonderful leadership, in that way. That’s what’s really been remarkable to me, to watch and to work with, more so than anything.

Westworld airs on Sunday nights on HBO.