‘Westworld’: Vincent Cassel Takes Us Inside Serac’s Agenda & Tonight’s Episode 5 ‘Genre’
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SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains details about tonight’s Westworld season 3, episode 5 “Genre” on HBO.
Tonight we got to know a little bit more about Engerraund Serac, the current Incite boss, and co-creator of supercomputer Rehoboam, which he designed with his brother.
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Sure, Serac has some redeeming qualities: he displays some sensitivity toward his emotionally-tortured brother and yearns to ward off future human-driven catastrophes in the world with Rehoboam. Yet, Serac is just as guilty and chaotic as the humanity which he deems “a miserable band of thugs”; specifically he murders former Incite CEO Dempsey Sr. In addition, as much as Serac wants to predict the world, and control the outliers like his brother, it works to his advantage that Rehoboam allows for a degree of free choice. And while we got to see him facing Delores, who busted out the computer’s prediction intel to the world tonight, their fight is far from over.
Elsewhere, we watched as Caleb struggled with his identity; Liam Dempsey, Jr’s murder just threw him for a loop. Liam’s final words to Caleb are “You don’t know who you are! You’re the worst of them!” and “You did it,” triggering Caleb to ask Delores, “Who does he think I am?”. Caleb’s memory is jogged with a flashback of him acting as a hitman, killing what looks to be a new, mysterious figure in Westworld lore played by Veronica Mars’ Enrico Colantoni. Vincent Cassel is here tonight to talk about tonight’s episode which was written by Karrie Crouse and Jonathan Nolan, and directed by Anna Foerster.
DEADLINE: Tell us about how the part of Serac came to you, and what was explained to you by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Did they instruct you to go back and watch certain episodes?
VINCENT CASSEL: No. They told me the concept of it really. They told me a very wide storyline. Actually it was such a wide span of the character that it wasn’t really contained in another season. Then I discovered things that they told me about here and there, intertwined with all the different stories because there are so many characters and you have to adapt. You have to adapt and understand what it’s about. Just believe in what you say, even though sometimes it’s on such a wide scale. It really makes sense when you see the series that I’m discovering right now with the audience, but sometimes on set you have to be very focused on your storyline. We have the scripts, so I have all the scenarios of all the episodes like two days before we start shooting.
DEADLINE: Will Bernard ultimately be an ally of Serac? Has Serac figured him out yet?
CASSEL: I can’t really tell you. I’m sorry about that. Up to that point, it’s not really clear. I think you’ll discover that relationship later on.
DEADLINE: Is Serac’s brother still around?
CASSEL: Is he?
DEADLINE: Well, the last we see of him, he’s in the hospital. I don’t think he died.
CASSEL: That’s the thing, it’s what really became of the brother now because we are intertwined with the past and the present. It’s not quite clear if he is still alive or not. There is something of him that is alive, that’s for sure.
DEADLINE: So, Serac wants access to the data that’s in Westworld in order to make Rehoboam perfect. Seriously? Does he really want the data from that old, dumpy park or does he have another agenda?
CASSEL: Honestly, Delos’s data is unique because they reflect a part of human behavior that you cannot find in daily life. This is where they express their meanest and lowest, I would say, impulse and also that data is very rare because people don’t reveal that except in that situation, and plus Delos has been wise enough to collect all of that data of all the people who went there very deeply without even telling, not the host, but the clients.
DEADLINE: Does Serac enjoy the fact that Rehoboam isn’t perfect, and he can take advantage of that? While he complains about outliers to the system like his brother, he kills Dempsey Sr., a scenario the computer couldn’t predict.
CASSEL: I can’t answer that, but I can tell you that you’re pointing to something very important. What are the outliers, what are those people that you can’t predict? What are they? What are they responsible for, really, and why are they so dangerous to the balance of this world that he created? And now we know that his brother is one of them.
DEADLINE: Does Serac know yet that Maeve is lying bleeding, slain by Musashi in a factory?
CASSEL: Honestly, I think this guy knows everything, and that’s the point, you know. So, if you want to trick him, it’s not by what he’s not knowing, it’s how to disrupt his logic, I would say.
DEADLINE: Dolores being code, she can exist everywhere, including Charlotte Hale (in Halores). Hale was also the mole who leaked info to Serac. We know Dolores wants revolution, wants to stop this computer and Serac. But with her occupying all these different characters, does she have conflicting agendas? Can you expound more on what her intentions are?
CASSEL: Dolores wants to reveal the world as it is. People don’t behave, people are low and cruel, and she’s suffered, so she wants to reveal the world how it is, and Serac wants to keep the world in a place with an image that is totally polished, and where people like him don’t appear. He doesn’t appear. It seems like everything is cute and nice, and that there is somebody controlling this whole thing, so it’s all about…it’s two different philosophies, really: She wants freedom and he wants peace.
DEADLINE: In the wake of the coronavirus, has the significance of Westworld changed for you?
CASSEL: The show echoed with me right away, especially when I got involved, and when I watched the first two seasons. I’m not talking about the virus in particular, but there’s this whole thing about trying to see the cost and the real value of data, and what you can do with it. A lot of people don’t understand what somebody could do with all the little details of their lives, and this show is a good example of that. There are so many other things: The revenge of women is something very modern, and these are very strong female characters who want revenge and they want freedom, and this resonates a lot with modern times too.
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