Thandie Newton, who swore off nudity, gets naked again for Westworld

Thandie Newton has done nudity in movies but swore off doing more - until Westworld.

She steals every scene in the acclaimed HBO TV drama as Maeve, the sassy android madam of the saloon brothel in the titular theme park.

In the first season, she discovers that her every thought and move has been pre-programmed by her human creators and plots to help the android hosts of Westworld take over by the season-ending violent cliffhanger.

The second season premieres today on HBO (StarHub TV Ch 601) at 9am and 10pm.

The 45-year-old English actress said during our interview at the Montage Beverly Hills hotel: "I have been nude in situations that I haven't had any control over, and I have been exploited as an actor.

"And I have been lied to about how nude I was - 'Oh, we are going to shoot above the nipple.' And then I watched the film, and it was all there and it was a lie.

"Bad things, and not just sexualised stuff, just safety. I have been in situations where the next day I am horrified by what could have happened to me. But they don't care because it is like, 'We have got to get the shot.' And I had actually resigned (myself to it). But when I (did that), I felt ashamed because it was like, 'Oh, I can't handle it.'"

Till Westworld came around in 2015, Newton - who has three children aged 18, 14 and four - had simply decided not to act any more.

"I had just had another baby. And I certainly never wanted to be naked again and be objectified again and have gratuitous stories written by other people. I was just done with it," she said.

Then she met the creators of Westworld, husband-and-wife team Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and in the meeting, they told her she would have to be nude for "75 per cent" of it.

Said Newton: "I was like, 'Do you know that I have been an activist for ending violence against women for the last 20 years? What are you talking about?'

"But then they described the premise of the show, that this character would end up being a revolutionary and that the nudity would not be sexualised. It would be to show the denigration and the degradation and the fact that these robots are being treated like carcasses of meat.

"And I was like, 'Yeah, that's a reason to get naked.' So I actually subverted my own experience as an actress. And I reclaimed my body as an actress. And it is so ironic to reclaim it by doing the very thing that was done to me against my free will.

"It was deep. And I am so proud."

CRITICAL HIT

With its 10 episodes of the first season made for around US$100 million (S$131 million), Westworld has been a critical hit -which has to be a huge relief for HBO as it is supposed to be the cable network's replacement for its soon-to-end hit series Game Of Thrones.

Newton - who won a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2016 and was nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award - was surprised by the reaction, however.

She said: "It was incredible having the response from the media and garnering so much incredible attention... I absolutely wasn't expecting any of it.

"And getting older, you stop straining over what could be and what might happen...Over 40, you kind of relax into just, 'This is how it is, I am not going to struggle too hard.'

"Resistance is not futile, but resistance tends to cause more pain, more frustration. I am just going to allow life to take its course."

There is not much Newton can say about the second season.

"Shock is kind of how I felt when I was presented with the first episode, let alone the whole season," she said, when asked about her reaction to the new storyline.

"I had no idea how ambitious, daring and brave we could be. I was limiting the scope of my ideas when I considered the second season.

"After the first season, I just let it go. I was exhausted, but I felt really satisfied and fulfilled. I also liked the idea of having a job where I didn't have to worry about if I was going to work next year.

"And then one thing led to another, one episode led to another, and I just felt this incredible ownership of Maeve."