Evan Rachel Wood Still Wants to Know How ‘Westworld’ Would Have Ended: ‘It Keeps Me Up at Night’

The abrupt cancellation of “Westworld” in late 2022 marked an unceremonious ending for what was once one of HBO’s buzziest series. Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi novel followed the employees and customers of a futuristic theme park that allowed visitors to immerse themselves in the Wild West, taking out their most violent urges on realistic androids built to resemble humans. But while its debut season was a cultural phenomenon, declining viewership and critical reception prompted HBO to part ways with the show after Season 4.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “Westwood” star Evan Rachel Wood reflected on the show’s cancellation. She revealed that the most painful part of the process was being left in the dark about how the story would have ultimately ended.

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“It was devastating in a lot of ways because, first of all, they don’t tell us where the show is going. We were just always told, ‘We know how the show ends,’ when we started,” Wood said of her relationship with the showrunners. “They weren’t writing it as we went along. They had an idea, and we were all just on a bed of nails waiting to see and hear what the conclusion of this was. What it all meant.”

Wood continued: “We didn’t get to have that and so after building an arc and a character for almost 10 years and not getting the payoff at the end to see where it was all going — I think for us and the audience, it was awful in a lot of ways.”

Wood revealed that even once it became clear that the show would not be completed, Joy and Nolan still refused to reveal their planned ending.

“I asked the creators after we got canceled, ‘Can you please just tell me how you’re going to end?’ And they wouldn’t tell me,” she said. “I think because, I don’t know, maybe somehow, someway, in some iteration we’ll get to finish it, but I still don’t know. It does still keep me up at night.”

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