Sunday night’s episode of Westworld, “Kiksuya,” has been praised by fans and critics alike as one of the best episodes of the series to date. Part of the reason is because it departs pretty drastically from the the show’s frenetic, time-hopping, robot rampaging comfort zone, slowing down to focus on one character’s search for lost love and the meaning of life. That character is Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), and people, like Joanna Robinson of Vanity Fair, are raving about his performance. Robinson spoke to McClarnon on the latest episode of the Still Watching Westworld podcast, and he delved into the making of his landmark episode. (You can also listen to it at Vanity Fair. McClarnon’s portion starts around the 1:07:00 mark.)
“In the beginning, I didn’t know it would be a full episode on Akecheta,” McClarnon said of the genesis of “Kiksuya.” “ talked about it exploring Ghost Nation and exploring my character.” And it took a while for McClaron to cotton on to how big the episode would be for him, since the producers gave out the script in pieces and explained where he was in the timeline bit by bit.
"It’s a unique process, I guess. They don’t give you quite a bit so you kind of have to tap into a different aspect of your acting because you’re usually a bit more prepared with the material, scripts, you get a script beforehand…it’s just a unique way and I think that’s done on purpose."
“Kiksuya” focuses on Akecheta’s love story with his wife Kohana, played by Julia Jones. As Robinson points out, they only had one episode to develop their relationship, but fans seem to have embraced it. Their reunion in cold storage, in particular, was a knockout, and even though Kohana was powered down at the moment, Jones still helped McClarnon find the emotional center of the scene. “You can’t see it, but there were some things going on when they were covering me below my face, like holding my hand, and just being available emotionally for me. Just having to look into her eyes was enough for me.”
A lot of the story of the episode is told in voiceover, with McClarnon acting a lot with his eyes. However, when McClarnon filmed his scenes, he didn’t even know what he was going to be saying in voiceover yet, so a lot of credit has to go to director Uta Briesewitz, whom McClaron was quick to praise.
"I’ve been working with a lot of women directors lately. I kind of prefer it. It’s just a different approach…It’s easier for me to get in touch, especially with the love story going on…I just find it to be easier to work with a female. I just like her process of taking control of the set…She just takes over. It’s her vision, and I just try to hit my mark and convey that vision as an actor."
McClarnon likened the feel of the episode, with its lengthy silences and facial acting, to something out of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Indeed, Malick seems like an inspiration on a lot of the episode, what with all the shots of people framed against beautiful landscapes.
As for the voiceover, it was all done in Lakota, a language that McClarnon already had some familiarity with.
"This production took the time…to make sure that language was right, and that’s extremely important…They take pride in getting things right, and I think that’s really important, for any production…We spend a good eight hours in voiceover, and I think it was worth it. Definitely."
Having the episode be Lakota with English subtitles helped us empathize with the members of Ghost Nation. That’s important, because up to now, they’ve mostly been portrayed as savages. “It’s a fictitious tribe made up by Dr. Ford, who thinks this is what the tribe would be,” McClarnon explains. “So you kinda got liberties to play with, because it’s a white person who made up a tribe. . So when they started sending me small bits of material, I was extremely excited to be a part of it.”
Finally, McClarnon talked about Akecheta’s scene with Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). Before they talk, Ford puts Akecheta into analysis mode, which presented a unique challenge for McClarnon:
"It was a difficult scene because I thought I was going to go into a regular host mode where you kind of focus your eyes and then you talk. And they wanted something different, and I was expecting they were going to have me do what everybody else does, but they asked me to freeze, and they asked me to struggle with the dialogue."
We imagine the struggle was about the fact that Akecheta was now awake, and resisting being put into sleep mode. So how did McClarnon handle it? He just acted, man. “When you’re acting, you don’t want to feel like you’re acting. It was a difficult process for me, but I think it turned out okay.”
Westworld continues Sunday night with the penultimate episode of season 2, “Vanishing Point.”
Next: Go behind the scenes of “Kiksuya” and learn all about the Ghost Nation
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