| “ | Here's to the lady with the white shoes. Take all your money, drink all your booze. Ain't got a cherry, that ain't no sin. She's still got the box that the cherry come in. | ” |
– Old Bill | ||
Old Bill is a supporting character in the first season of Westworld. One of the first hosts built[1], Bill is now decommissioned and stored on Sub-Level B83; he is still visited from time to time by the Park Director, Dr. Robert Ford. Bill is played by Michael Wincott.
Old Bill is the only character we know of to have his own Twitter account. Follow Old Bill on Twitter at @TheRealOldBill.
Biography
Background
Dr. Robert Ford recalls that Bill was the second host to be created in the early stages of Westworld's development. His narrative loop involved a lady with white shoes.[2]
Season One
- "The Original": Bernard Lowe and Ashley Stubbs find the disturbance in Sub-Level B83 is actually Dr. Robert Ford who's turned on one of the old hosts for a personal discussion. As they approach they hear Old Bill, is eager to toast the lady with the white shoes, but Ford turns him off and asks that the host put himself away, and back into storage.[2]
- "Contrapasso": Dr Robert Ford visits Old Bill again and has a drink with him. Despite Ford leading him, Old Bill sticks to his pre-programmed script throughout the conversation; he's not able to do anything else.
Personality
As an outmoded first-generation Host, Bill's personality seems to be limited. His only appearances involve him pouring and conversing over drinks; presumably this was part of his narrative when he was still in the park. He appears to be amiable and friendly to Ford, or perhaps, to whomever shares a drink with him.
His tone is wistful and somewhat detached, and he'll listen intently to stories that another person tells him, but only remarks that the story is "a real humdinger" — indicating that his listening, comprehension, and improvisation abilities are too primitive for anything else. Old Bill also exhibits a number of physical glitches including eyelids that blink asynchronously from each other, and he can't seem to execute even simple movements without momentary hitches.
Despite, or perhaps because of, Old Bill's shortcomings, Dr. Ford appears to have a nostalgic affection for the host bartender. Old Bill will often indicate the end of a conversation loop by proposing the same toast in his affable, whiskey-and-tobacco-infused growl: "Shall we drink to the lady with the white shoes?"
Production Notes
Old Bill's subtle freeze-and-go motions seem to reside a bit too firmly in the Uncanny Valley to have been performed completely organically, and indeed, his scenes required a lot of post-production special effects work to leaven actor Michael Wincott's movements with just the right amount of entropy. Westworld's VFX supervisor Jay Worth explained to Inverse Entertainment that effects house Cosa VFX applied significant computer-assisted layering and compositing to make Old Bill move like an almost-convincing first-generation biomechanical host.
Appearances
References
- ↑ Ford, The Original
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Original