NOLAN I’ve never been terribly interested in twists for twists’ sake. I’ve been interested in the limitations of human — or in the case of “Westworld,” not-human — perception. The way that we see the world and the way that our biases and our hangups and our flaws impact the way that we see this world. So with this project, we were interested in the ways that an artificial mind would perceive the world differently. Memory, which is something Lisa and I have long been fascinated by, and the clarity of memory felt like a really interesting thing to play with, and the story followed from that. We had initially turned it down because I couldn’t see past the “Fantasy Island” version of it, like we’d have different guests each week and the hosts would help through their relationship problems. [Laughs.] But Lisa saw it very clearly. She said to me one night when we were having dinner and talking about it: “God, this is everything that we think about and talk about. Everything that we’re interested in right now in one show.”

LISA JOY We’re in this really lovely creative moment right now where people aren’t holding themselves back anymore and saying, “Well, this is the genre or this is the world that I’m working in, so I can’t step outside of this box.” Previously, you might have thought that this should just be a kind of horror film, or a dystopian thing where robots chase humans around. And now as tastes evolve, as TV evolves, you can do an episode that has an amazing fight scene but also a scene that poses legitimate philosophical questions and also contains character elements that speak to the most simple and enduring elements of the human condition.

There’s been about 17 months or so between seasons. What were you doing over that time? Do you worry about situating people in the story after so much time away without their heads swimming?

NOLAN I think a little head-swimming is not a bad thing. For “Westworld,” Lisa and I go through three distinct phases. We write — or rather, we pull together a writers’ room and we plot it out. The original film is packed with cool ideas, but there isn’t really a single shared character between the film and our series. We had to build the world out from the ground up, so that means we spend six months thinking and writing. Then we turn our attention — Lisa and I both direct on the show — to the production. Then we turn our attention to the editing phase. The short version is we definitely didn’t get a vacation in between the two seasons.

A common theme in reviews of the second season is that the show feels more fun now that the hosts have busted out. Do you feel that, too?