HBO showed off the first full trailer for its upcoming sci-fi series Westworld before the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones on Sunday night, and eagle-eyed viewers now know why the show’s extras were asked to sign an unusually sexually explicit casting contract back in September.
The trailer gives fans their first good look at Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford, an inventor whose life-like androids populate a Western-themed adult amusement park, and at the robots themselves, who will be played by Thandie Newton, Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden, among others.
Also appearing in the trailer are series co-stars Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright and Rodrigo Santoro.
HBO’s official synopsis describes the series — which is based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 film of the same name — as a “dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.”
Showrunner Jonathan Nolan (Person of Interest, Interstellar) told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview that he wanted Westworld to have “this big scope,” and the trailer shows off some of that scope, with panoramic shots of cowboys riding horses through a desert cut with claustrophobic shots from what appears to be the inside of the amusement park, where the robots may be becoming sentient.
“This behavior… we’re miles beyond a glitch here,” warns Wright’s Bernard Lowe.
The trailer that played before Game of Thrones on HBO also included a brief shot of a massive orgy, though that scene appears to have been scrubbed entirely in the clip released online.
A casting notice for the show made public in September revealed that extras for Westworld may have been required to do any of the following: “appear fully nude; wear a pubic hair patch; perform genital-to-genital touching; have your genitals painted; simulate oral sex with hand-to-genital touching; contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude; pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back; ride on someone’s back while you are both fully nude.”
The contract was so explicit that the SAG-AFTRA actors’ union circulated an email reminding members that they could withdraw consent at any time during a shoot.
The trailer also gives eager fans a release date some time in October. The series was scheduled to premiere in the first half of this year but was pushed back due to reshoots.
Watch the first full trailer for Westworld above.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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