Tonight begins a new chapter for Evan Rachel Wood’s character Dolores Abernathy in the season 2 premiere of Westworld. The robots are no longer just a pawn for humans to play in the futuristic wild wild West theme park. This season they’re ready to take charge. But how will the robots take on their new roles as free leaders in the Maze? In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, it seems as if Wood singles out one difficulty she had with the script.
When asked what the most challenging aspect she faced in season 2, she did not respond by saying playing Dolores as a real person, a robot, and also embodying Wyatt — the mysterious Civil War general and villian with whom Dolores merged— as we presumed, but rather speaking as a general.
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“[Dolores is] faced with a lot of dilemmas,” Wood told EW. “Also because she has taken up this leader position and has Wyatt in her, she sometimes speaks like a general. I’m not used to that kind of dialogue because I’m a girl. I’ve never been asked to play a general, it’s completely foreign to me. She’s in a war and at the helm and that’s completely new.”
How is it possible for Wood — who bravely faced Congress and spoke about her harrowing sexual assault — not know how to play a leader? Well, ask yourself this question. When’s the last time you saw a female general, or any military authority figure, portrayed on-screen? Exactly. Looks like Hollywood isn’t creative enough to think outside the gender norms box.
The addition of Dolores as Wyatt could be attributed to Lisa Joy — the female half of Westworld’s showrunner team. Dolores, however, is a pioneer in her own right, and we’ll see more of that fighting spirit as she continues to break free from her limitations as a robot. It is telling, however, when an actor as versatile as Wood has never been given a dialogue that would otherwise be written exclusively for a man.
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