Thandie Newton recalls how her miserable experience on Rogue -- including fighting over a topless scene -- led her to Westworld

Vulture

In a wide-ranging interview with Vulture, Newton remembers starring in the Audience Network police drama Rogue, and working with a producer who was "just sexist." "I refused to do a scene where I’d have to take my top off. I just thought, It’s not that kind of sex scene," says Newton. "It was the first sex scene in the whole series. I was the lead in this new TV show...And I didn’t want to do it. It didn’t make sense for the story with the two characters playing husband and wife who are kind of estranged. I was like, 'It just doesn’t make any sense to take it off.' He goes, 'Listen, kid. Thandie Newton. Top off. Ratings.' And I laughed. I was actually really grateful for the honesty. And I’m like, 'Well, listen. Then definitely f*cking not.' But he still got the other actor to pull my top down in the scene. And that’s what’s there." Newton adds that "if it hadn’t been for Rogue, I wouldn’t have wanted Westworld so much. But I’ll tell you, this was so hideous. On the last days of doing Rogue … I got killed miserably. I get dumped in a laundry container by this nasty guy, who’s a great actor. I get taken down to the bowels of the hotel, where we had this huge fight where he strangled me to death, and then I get dumped in this garbage-disposal tank, and the last shot of me is sinking down into garbage, like into sewage, babe. But listen to this: On the side of the garbage-disposal tanks, it says WESTWORLD GARBAGE DISPOSAL. They all knew I was going to go on to do Westworld because I’d already signed up to do it...I ended up in the fetal position, weeping, sobbing. I had put two years of hard work into that show. And there I was: Westworld Garbage Disposal." Newton also admits she has some "frustrations" with her Westworld character. "Well, season one, the evolution of this robot who then has the revelation that she’s not human, and that she had a past that involved a child, and the betrayal of that, and then using information to empower herself — it was such a powerful story. I’m not surprised that it hooked people in," she says. "And then the second and third season has Maeve with a different directive, but it’s not her own. She’s following other people’s leads, by and large. In the first season, she was driving, dominating, pretty straightforward. I think Maeve is a metaphor for the dispossessed in the world, and she’s become that kind of leader, but she’s not had a chance to lead, and I don’t think she necessarily should. She certainly doesn’t want to."