Thandie Newton, the star of Westworld Season 3, tells Michele Manelis why she is an anarchist with an OBE
The tagline for Season 3 of Westworld is "Free Will isn't Free." Could you talk a little bit about how the conflict of free will is important to the storytelling and
the message of the show?
Yeah, well I mean free will is not free. We are in the human world and the system allows everybody to be fed, everybody to have a job, everyone has a wage in this dystopian world. So within that environment, you are free, but on someone else's terms. Your freedom is dependent on you agreeing to a system, paying taxes to a system, and that's something that is really a question we could ask ourselves every day: how do you know when to stop paying taxes en masse? And what if we just stopped paying? It'd be chaos, obviously, but an interesting idea.
That is indeed a radical idea. Do you consider yourself a radical?
I suppose. I question authority and I encourage my children to question authority, not just for the sake of questioning it but I believe that all authority needs to be earned. It's not something that is just appointed or self-appointed, certainly. I think I am a bit of an anarchist, actually.
Well, you've done well - for an anarchist to receive an OBE from the Queen is quite something. What was your first reaction when you found out?
I felt so good about it and for my mother, especially. Honestly, to have come from Zimbabwe, worked her ass off and had pride in being British, her pride in being accepted, when she had grown up in a colonial environment. It was really honouring the incredible hard work of my family, who are British. And also the message and representation of British people as being this modern spectrum of rainbow ethnicities.
Your role is very physical – how do you keep up?
Yes, it's how I would imagine being in the military. So you have to keep yourself as primed and fit and prepared as you possibly can. I have a lot of physical stuff to do and it's great, although I am flabbergasted that at my age I am like an action hero. And this happens now and not in my 20s? Okay, fine, but it's like the complete reverse of what it should be.
