Go Inside Warworld, Westworld’s New WWII-Themed Park
It feels like several years ago when we interviewed Westworld cinematographer and director Paul Cameron about the series’ ambitious third season (it was actually only 11 days ago). Since then, the world has gotten significantly scarier thanks to the spread of COVID-19, which makes Westworld‘s third season, fully wrapped long before the pandemic hit, extra comforting right now. That is, as comforting as HBO’s wildly ambitious, consistently intense sci-fi series can be. In last Sunday’s episode, we were once again back inside the park, this time in a brand new section we’d never seen before called Warworld. HBO has released a new behind-the-scenes featurette that takes you inside the creation of Warworld, which is set in a Nazi-occupied town in Italy.
The episode, shot by Richard J. Lewis and written by series co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, alongside Matt Pitts, sees Maeve (Thandie Newton) “waking up” in this new park, soon to be reunited with her old flame Hector (Rodrigo Santoro), now calling himself Ettore. “Where are we?” Maeve asks. “Stranded in hell,” Hector/Ettore replies.
Hector/Ettore wants to take Maeve and escape from the Nazis in a plane he’s got waiting for them. The town is lousy with soldiers, and as realistic as it all appears, Maeve being Maeve—exceedingly smart—quickly realizes she’s in a simulation, that poor Hector/Ettore doesn’t even remember her, and she’ll have to figure out a way to outsmart the creator of Warworld, rather than play out poor Hector/Ettore’s planed-based loop, to escape.
This being Westworld, the scenes in Warworld are gorgeously produced. They were shot in Bethulu, Spain, a small town that retains its old-world charm. “Bethulu was pretty frozen in time,” says production designer Howard Cummings in the video. Despite Warworld being set in Italy, the Westworld crew found Bethulu to be irresistible.
Check out the featurette here. Westworld returns for episode three this Sunday night at 9 pm E.T.:
Featured image: Thandie Newton is Maeve in Westworld. Photograph by John P. Johnson/HBO
