Emmy Sunday will be especially grueling for James Marsden and Luke Hemsworth of the multiple-nominated series Westworld. On Sept. 17, they’ll hit the Nautica Malibu Triathlon presented by Equinox — a half-mile ocean swim, 17-mile bike ride and 4-mile run — with proceeds going to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Marsden admits he wasn’t aware the triathlon was scheduled on the same day as TV’s biggest night when he signed up. “I try to do it every year,” says the actor of the bike race (this time, he’ll do the run portion of the relay as part of what he dubbed a mini-“Team Westworld”). Marsden, who adds that he will skip the awards show but attend the HBO party, says the series provides training incentive because of the required nude scenes.

“It forces you to stay in shape because you never know when you’re going to be asked to get naked,” he explains. “What scares me is not knowing when that scene is going to be shot. Sometimes they’ll say, ‘Oh, you have to be naked in three days.’ Because we’re all so naked we all sort of hold each other’s hands and jump off the cliff together. They are very respectful and I’m never fully, fully, fully nude.”

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It’s good to play for a winner, even when “you’re here to be the loser” and no matter how many times you die.

Just ask James Marsden, who plays Teddy Flood, the robotic host of the smash HBO series “Westworld.”

There’s no place Marsden, whose character dies regularly on the show, would rather be right now. Being part of a show that’s been nominated for 22 Emmys — tied with “Saturday Night Live” for the most this year — can have that effect.

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James Marsden is sexy. So sexy that (at least) one other straight male star has taken notice.

The “Westworld” leading man, 43, receives a lot of attention for his — let’s just call it what it is — perfect face. But, he told AOL Entertainment, he’s come to realize that when men say, “My wife has a crush on you,” it’s sometimes a bit of a cover.

“Sometimes guys have a problem expressing their admiration for another guy. ‘Oh, my wife likes you,'” he told AOL Entertainment as he prepared to face off against Joel McHale in Doritos’ Bold or Boom Challenge. “What they’re trying to tell you is that they have a man-crush. Which, not to put too fine a point on it, might be the dynamic today.”

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In the midst of the huge crowds, action-packed panels and entertainment installations at San Diego Comic-Con, James Marsden and Joel McHale waged a “war” over an “age-old” debate: whether Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch Doritos are better.

Why? Because they were celebrity team captains for a Doritos fan event called the “Bold or Boom Challenge,” for which two teams of fans were assembled to compete in an athletic challenge for McHale’s Team Cool Ranch and Marsden’s Team Nacho Cheese. PEOPLE caught up with the two TV stars before the event to find out how they got themselves involved in the contest and whether or not they actually eat Doritos. Unexpectedly, the conversation veered into hilarious places. Here’s an excerpt from their quippy back-and-forth:

James Marsden: We are coaching two volunteer teams assembled. Joel’s team is Cool Ranch. My team is Nacho Cheese, we’re basically doing the Lord’s work today.

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James Marsden, despite his prolific oeuvre, starts with a clean slate in HBO’s Westworld – quite literally. In the first scene with co-star Anthony Hopkins, he stripped down to his birthday suit.

“First scene ever with Sir Anthony and I was naked as the day I was born,” Marsden quips and quickly shrugs it off with a megawatt smile as we sit down for the interview in Geneva.

“But I embraced it. I love those bizarre situations I found myself in Westworld,” he adds.

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James Marsden was just as shocked about last week’s Westworld’s finale as we were.

ET’s Cameron Mathison caught up with the actor on the red carpet at the Critics’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, where he dished on the HBO series’ success — and its jaw-dropping season one finale.

“The cast was there, the showrunner was there, the ideas and the philosophies and all that was aligned,” Marsden explained of what made the show click. “You just, you never know until it’s out and people are discussing it and theorizing about it. You never want to jinx yourself, but it’s been fun to sit back and watch it kind of take off.”

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SINGAPORE — He has successfully crossed over from movies to TV and back. As an actor, who is on the lookout for the next acting frontier to discover, James Marsden said that unpredictability is an interesting quality of an onscreen character. It’s safe to say that playing Teddy Flood, a handsome gunslinger host — a robot/android — on HBO’s drama series Westworld, sit well with James.

“You always wanna play characters that there’s more going on to them than just what’s on the surface, you know,” he shared with Asian writers during his recent visit in the city to promote Westworld’s season finale. “You don’t really know what they’re gonna do in any circumstance, a lot of different things that drive them, different motives. So I think Teddy is very similar in that way. I think he sees himself having a peaceful life with Dolores someday but there’s this past he has to come to terms with.” By the way, Dolores, played by Evan Rachel Wood, is Teddy’s object of affection, who learned that her reality was a lie. Also in the cast were Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford, founder and chief programmer of Westworld, and Ed Harris, the Man in Black.

This type of roles excites James to develop from ground up. With Westworld, the cast members didn’t have a full knowledge on the 10 episodes. None of them knew where the story was heading, James related. His character had gone from “good guy that turned completely upside down and he can be a savage killer if he needs to be,” he said. The actor found working on Westworld satisfying and playing Teddy’s different sides exciting.

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Science-fiction series Westworld’s season one finale airs today. Its maker, HBO, has announced a second season, but actor James Marsden is keeping his lips sealed over whether his character, the synthetic human Teddy Flood, is coming back.

He remains reticent even when it is pointed out that robots, called “hosts” in the show, are immortal.

After “death” – often at the hands of human clients releasing forbidden urges – the hosts are repaired, memory-wiped and returned to service in a process called a “reset”.

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James Marsden hammed it up as a prince in Enchanted and a wedding reporter in 27 Dresses.

But the US actor’s work has taken a dark turn in HBO sci-fi series Westworld, where he plays robot cowboy Teddy Flood condemned to die at others’ whims.

Teddy is a host at virtual reality amusement park Westworld, where guests pay to indulge in their fantasies, with no limits, in a Western-themed space.

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