HBO to Premiere Season 3 of Rodrigo Santoro’s “Westworld” in March

Rodrigo Santorois heading West(world) this March…

HBO has set Sunday, March 15 at 9:00 pm for the release of the eight-episode third season of its Emmy-winning drama series Westworldstarring the 44-year-old Brazilian actor.

Rodrigo Santoro

In addition to Santoro, who portrays Hector Escaton, the returning cast includes

Evan Rachel Woodas Dolores, Thandie Newtonas Maeve, Ed Harris as the Man in Black, Jeffrey Wrightas Bernard, Tessa Thompsonas Charlotte, Luke Hemsworthas Stubbs and Simon Quartermanas Lee Sizemore.

New cast members this season include Aaron PaulVincent Cassel,Lena WaitheScott MescudiMarshawn LynchJohn Gallagher Jr., and Michael and Tommy Flanagan.

Created for television by Jonathan Nolanand Lisa Joy, and based on the film written by Michael Crichton, Westworld is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the birth of a new form of life on Earth.

The theme for the new season is “New World” and at Comic-Con in July, Nolan said one of the inspirations for the new season was Blade Runner, though he noted he wanted to do it differently.

Nolan said they went out in the world to find some beautiful places to shoot to capture the show’s future. “Dystopia can look pretty beautiful in the world. Just because the world is corrupt inside, doesn’t mean it can’t be smothered over and pretty. We wanted to find a version of dystopia that we hadn’t seen before,” Nolan said at Comic-Con.

The first two seasons of Westworld received a combined 42 Emmy nominations. The second season’s 20 noms resulted in three wins, including: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Newton, Outstanding Makeup for a Single-Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic) and Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series.

Rodrigo Lands a Villainous Role on HBO’s “Westworld”

Rodrigo Santoro is heading west(world)

The 38-year-old Brazilian actor has landed a villainous role on HBO’s Westworld.

Rodrigo Santoro

Santoro joins the Anthony Hopkins– and Evan Rachel Wood-starrer, which is inspired by Michael Crichton‘s 1973 film of the same name.

The drama is billed as a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin. Hopkins stars as Dr. Robert Ford, the brilliant, taciturn and complicated creative director, chief programmer and chairman of the board of Westworld, who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park — and unorthodox methods of achieving it.

Wood portrays Dolores Abernathy, the quintessential farm girl of the frontier West — who is about to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie.

Santoro will portray the terrifying and brutal with a dark sense of humor Harlan Bell, Westworld’s perennial “most wanted” bandit. He subscribes to the theory that the West is a wild place, and the only way to survive is to embrace the role of predator.

Joining Santoro, Hopkins and Wood are Jeffrey Wright, Shannon Woodward, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Angela Sarafyan and Simon Quarterman.

Person of Interest‘s Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote the pilot, will direct and executive produce alongside J.J. AbramsLisa Joy co-wrote the pilot and will exec produce.