It was a real shock in the world of TV when HBO decided to cancel its Emmy-winning series Westworld after four seasons. While this news couldn’t have been easy to hear anyone involved with the show, Luke Hemsworth, who played Ashley Stubbs on the show, learned about the cancellation on quite possibly the worst day, his birthday.
Hemsworth told ET at the premiere of his brother Chris Hemsworth’s series Limitless that he learned about the Westworld news on his 42nd birthday. Obviously, this is not the news you want to hear anytime, let alone your birthday, so his reaction made sense. The actor explained his thoughts when he found out, saying:
I was like, 'Fuck! Dammit!'
He also reflected on the sad news regarding the long-running show, explaining:
You hope these things go forever, but everyone's got their own reasons. I'm very thankful for my part in that series and that journey was a big part of my life, but yeah it was disappointing.
It really is disappointing, especially since Jonathan Nolan, the showrunner, had a plan for the show’s fifth and final season. There’s a little extra sting about not getting closure because Season 4 was full of cast members returning and big plot twists, making the possibility of Season 5 even more exciting. Hemsworth also commented on the show not getting the closure it wanted, and how he’s moving forward, saying:
I think the idea right from the start was to go full circle and come back to be about loops, to be about human beings and robots being stuck in that trajectory. Unfortunately, we get cut off, but it's the nature of the world. You can't get depressed about it. You move on and it opens up new doors.
While the cancellation really sucks for everyone involved, luckily the cast will get paid for Season 5, because they had “pay-or-play deals.”
On another good note, a lot of the cast members have many exciting projects coming up, and many have recently been released. For example, Evan Rachel Wood played Madonna in the biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and has another movie in the works. Meanwhile, James Marsden has had two big projects drop this week with Season 3 of the Netflix show Dead to Me along with the highly anticipated and long-awaited Enchanted sequel, Disenchanted.
As for Luke Hemsworth, he has two movies on the 2022 movie schedule, with Bosch & Rockit and Bad Hombres. He also has one movie on the 2023 film schedule called Land of Bad, which also stars his brother Liam Hemsworth as well as Russell Crowe and Milo Ventimiglia. So, even though it’s a real bummer Luke learned about the Westworld news on his b-day, at least he, and we, have lots of fun projects to look forward to.
Also, even though Westworld is over, you can always go back and watch Hemsworth, and the rest of the stellar ensemble cast, in all four seasons of the hit sci-fi series with an HBO Max subscription.
