The remaining episodes of Westworld season three will focus more on the dark “underworld” of Los Angeles, according to supervising locations manager Mandi Dillin.

Speaking exclusively to NME, Dillin spoke of how the city of Los Angeles plays like a character in the show, and the ways this could develop in future episodes.

“If you’re an Angeleno or even if you don’t live in Los Angeles, you don’t really think of downtown LA very much,” says Dillin.


“You think of the beach, you think of Hollywood, so we’ve made downtown Los Angeles a character in season three, both on its own and when we start to combine the Los Angeles skyline with Singapore and our concept art so it becomes this composite metropolis of the future.”

During early episodes of this season, new character Caleb (played by Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul) books small time criminal work via a Grand Theft Auto-inspired app on his smartphone in order to supplement his meagre earnings as a construction worker. These jobs bring him into contact with LA’s criminal “underworld”, featuring characters played by Lena Waithe and Marshawn Lynch.

When asked whether the rest of the season would see more of this darker side of the city, Dillin confirmed. “Yes. Let’s just say the characters spend more time in the underworld in the future episodes,” she said to avoid spoilers.

Reflecting more on the episodes to date, Dillin further explained how this darker side manifests. “The perfect example is episode 4, where Maeve goes into the underbelly of the city, sees the morgue, the mortician and then ends up at the distillery,” said Dillin. “That to me is the delicious details that brings visual intrigue into the story we’re telling.”

She added: “We’re trying to talk about the city of our future. This beautiful city where we have fantastic architecture and plants are growing off the buildings and it’s very illustrious and feels very elegant. But then you realise it’s only accessible to a handful of people in society, where the rest of us live in the underbelly.


‘Westworld’ continues Mondays at 9pm on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV