HOLLYWOOD!!!—Remember the 1973 movie Westworld, Michael Crichton's dystopian thriller that has Richard Benjamin and James Brolin visiting the theme park populated by extremely life-like androids, many of which they can fuck—and one of which, the "gunslinger" played by Yul Brynner, tries to hunt them down like dogs? We've long felt that that movie's producers missed a bet by not incorporating more android nudity and sexual activity—but hey, it was 1973, and the American sexual revolution was barely getting off the ground.
Cut to 2015, and lo and behold, HBO has turned that movie into a TV series starring, among other notables, Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton—and it looks as if this version may offer what that four-decade-old movie missed: Sex—or something close to it.
According to a series of stories on Deadline.com, the Hollywood agency Central Casting had required 57 union extras (aka "background players") to "sign consent forms acknowledging that they might be asked to 'appear fully nude; wear a pubic hair patch; perform genital-to-genital touching; have your genitals painted; simulate oral sex with hand-to-genital touching; contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude; pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back; ride on someone’s back while you are both fully nude; and other assorted acts the Project may require. The Project will also include language and sexual situations that some may consider personally objectionable or uncomfortable.'"
Apparently, though, not everything in the Central Casting form will actually be filmed, according to an HBO publicist, who said, "It [the consent language] was not requested, written or approved by HBO, Warner Bros. Television, or the producers, and contains situations that we do not require of any actor. We are rectifying immediately the discrepancies in this vendor’s document with our actual on-set practices, which provide a professional and comfortable working environment for all performers."
Still ... "I was dumbfounded," said one of the sexual extras. "There’s been nudity in TV and film for decades, but I have never seen this kind of waiver before. I would be surprised if principal performers were handed a document like this. It appears kind of coercive. Background people want to work, and they will do most anything they are asked, even when it makes them uncomfortable. And when they're handed something like this, they are not going to say no." (Of course, if HBO had been willing to hire adult performers, as the creators of Game of Thrones had no problem doing for that series, there wouldn't be any trouble at all.)
Much as we'd like to believe HBO's assurances, though, we can't help but suspect that most of the acts referenced in the consent form will indeed be filmed, though the actors themselves may be given the option of opting out of certain acts. After all, extras such as themselves usually get paid $157 per day, but Deadline.com reported that "a source familiar with the shoot" had told them that some of the extras would be getting up to $600 per day, depending on the types of sexual activities they had agreed to perform. A nearly 300 percent pay increase does usually come with some additional duties, but given all this recent publicity, we suspect that viewers will have to wait until the series premieres sometime next year to see just how much sexiness those performers were willing to portray.
Of course, since this is a mainstream production, and is even receiving tax credits under the California Film Commission's $330 million annual tax incentive program, the series will undoubtedly qualify for 18 U.S.C. §2257A's recordkeeping avoidance by the producers having filed a letter with the U.S. Attorney General—no matter what acts the sexy extras actually perform.
Still, we are looking forward to seeing someone "contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude"—and won't it be interesting if that's a guy?
UPDATE: Our friend John Amatucci of Adult Source Media reminds us that there have been two XXX-rated Westworld parodies: Anthony Spinelli's 1978 Sex World, starring Kay Parker, Annette Haven and John Leslie, and a newer, 2011 "remake" from Lee Roy Myers' Good Night Media, starring Ashli Orion, Alexa Nicole and Tara Lynn Foxx.
Pictured, l-r: Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Ben Barnes of HBO's Westworld.
