Westworld
James Marsden and Evan Rachel Wood in a scene from HBO's "Westworld." HBO

“X-Men” star James Marsden jumped at the chance to be a part of HBO’s new sci-fi series “Westworld” because it gave him a chance to live a childhood dream.

Marsden told Stuff that being on the set enabled him to live “out that eight-year-old fantasy of being a cowboy gunslinger again – putting on chaps, a cowboy hat, a gun and riding horses.”

But what the actor really came to appreciate about the show is not just the elaborate Wild West costumes and setting. Marsden said the show will make viewers question humanity — or the concept of humanity — as they try to figure out who are really humans and robotic “hosts.”

“It's kind of personal,” the actor said. “Maybe you will have empathy for them, maybe you will have empathy for the human race because of how they reveal themselves to be when they don't have society's judgment on how to behave. I maybe feel sorry for the human race.”

On the other hand, Marsden learned that there are “potential catastrophic repercussions” when people try to give too much intelligence to their creations. He believes there will be a downside to have too many automated creations.

Show creators Jonathan Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy really wanted to deliver something new to television. In most sci-fi movies, humans are always the protagonists, while robots or machines are trying to bring them down. This time, they wanted to turn the tables.

“We wondered, ‘What if we flipped it? What if we make the robots the good guys, and people are the ones who are horrible and f—ked up?’” Nolan told the Rolling Stone.

Nolans’ vision explains the show’s tagline, “Every Hero Has a Code.” Entertainment Weekly reported that it’s because the protagonists of this updated version of Michael Crichton’s 1973 film are actually robots, while the humans who go to the Western theme park seem to be devoid of morality.

“Westworld” will be released on HBO on Sunday, Oct. 2, at 9 p.m.

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