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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As Game of Thrones take a back seat before its final season, HBO’s newest sci-fi series, Westworld takes over television screens with its dark, twisted look into the dawn of artificial intelligence in a virtual world where visitors are free to do whatever they desire – no matter how noble or depraved. The show has proven to be a huge hit, taking over media and dinner tables with fervid discussions. Right before the show hits its feverish peak known as the season finale on 5 December 2016 on HBO, we sat down with one of the main actors, James Marsden* for to know more about his own Westworld journey.

Westworld is based off Westworld the film, from 1973, by Michael Chricton. Have you watched the film?

James: I watched the original, it was great. Yul Brynner was great, and one of the scariest villains in cinematic history. He was really the original terminator if you think about it.

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Make no mistake, the best way to experience Singapore seems to be through the stomach and James Marsden was all ready for this encounter.

It has become a cliche to ask visiting celebs matters pertaining to cuisine and Marsden appeared to be no stranger to the question. After all, it was his first time ever to this part of the world and he certainly made the most of his trip here having been sighted all a few local food joints. He even readily offered that he was having Laksa after the day’s interviews. Clearly HBO Singapore is taking good care of the man!

Teddy Flood, as we better know him from Westworld, was in Singapore just one week before the first season finale. And while he seemed to have a packed schedule having been to a morning talk show prior to the interview session, he seemed all upbeat as I walked into the room. Having only 25 minutes for a roundtable interview, the questions came fast and furious. It was interesting to see how Marsden tried his very best to hold back on any possible spoilers and deflect off any questions that might allude to his return in season two.

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The Westworld and X-Men star on what he likes about the Lion City

SINGAPORE — By now, most television buffs would have caught Westworld, HBO’s futuristic blockbuster about an amusement park set in the Wild West, where rich guests can have their way with their android “hosts”.

But even as audiences prepare for the series’ highly-anticipated season finale on Monday (Dec 5 at 10am Singapore time), actor James Marsden, who plays a gun-slinging host on the show, has been having a considerably more relaxing time than his character on Westworld.

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The actor talks Singapore food, regaining superpowers and filming nude for “Westworld”

Voted one of the handsomest men alive, James Marsden can make a boring grey couch look good. He sits on one across from us, looking eager and sprightly for a Wednesday morning.

After completing his run as Cyclops, aka Scott Summers, in the X-Men trilogy, Marsden is back to electrify fans with his boyish charm. He returns as the handsome Teddy Flood, a cowboy with a quick draw, in HBO’s latest series, “Westworld”.

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