How Emmy Nominee Jeffrey Wright Became ‘Westworld’ Keeper of Secrets

During the anti-Trump protests that followed the election, the actor found a moment of levity when a policeman recognized him from his performance as the dutiful programmer Bernard and stopped him to ask, “So, are there two timelines going on?”

A few days after the encounter, in fact, a new episode of “Westworld” revealed that Bernard was in fact one of the “hosts,” or androids designed to operate the futuristic theme park at the center of the HBO series.

[...] he’s sort of a subtle Mad Hatter leading the audience through all these rabbit tunnels.

“Westworld” was HBO’s top hope to retain its Emmy dominance in a year when “Game of Thrones” was not eligible, and it accomplished that task by racking up 22 nominations, tying “Saturday Night Live” as the year’s most nominated program.

Unlike most of the cast, Wright was told about this secret at the start of filming, which allowed him to notice and enhance the subtle differences between the Bernard scenes he mostly performed with Anthony Hopkins and the Arnold scenes he did with Evan Rachel Wood, who wasn’t let in on the secret until the final episodes were filmed.