When Jeffrey Wright arrived back on set six months after shooting the pilot for HBOs sci-fi series Westworld , he came armed with a heavy secret.

Hed recently learned that his character Bernard Lowe, the reserved head of Westworlds programming division and guardian of all robots contained within the futuristic Wild-West amusement park, was an android . Like the subjects hed be monitoring throughout the series first season, Bernard was not, in fact, as human as fans had been led to believe. Rather, hed been designed by Westworld mastermind Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and modeled to appear like his late business partner, Arnold Weber.

This colorful secret informed every morsel of Wrights performance in Season 1, unbeknownst to his colleagues. In an early scene with Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Westworlds oldest robotic host, Dolores Abernathy, for example, a suited-up Wright calmly asks her, Do you remember our last conversation, Dolores? She looks at him sweetly, responding, Yes, of course. At the time, Wood assumed this was a typical programming exchange between her character and Bernard. By the end of the season, however, the actress realized shed been acting across multiple timelines that Wright had at times been playing Bernard and at other times Arnold. Slight shifts in Wrights personality and wardrobe, and each scenes setting, artfully camouflaged the reveal.

No one knew until they got the script of the seventh episode, and then texts were flying my way, a bearded Wright told me during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, earlier this year. People had their wigs blown off that I held this from them for the many months that we were working on it.

I texted him, You! You! How did you do that? How did you keep that from everyone? co-star Luke Hemsworth, who plays security officer Ashley Stubbs, expressively told me. There are all these little cookies and Easter eggs where you go, Oh, thats what that is or Thats why Jeffreys doing that! ... Theres not a gesture or an eye movement that doesnt make sense when you go back and watch it again.

Id been working with Jeffrey for half a season and I find this out, and Im like, Did you know?! Wood reiterated. You find out these people who you love, who you work with every day, are holding these secrets from you!

Wright is good at stoking mystery. Before I met him, I associated the actor with the broody, bookish characters hes played on TV and film like Bernard, who lives in suit vests and laboratories. On the day of our interview, Wright was nothing like Bernard. He was dressed casually in a baseball cap and unzipped jacket, puffing from a vape pen in between laughs. Wed just escaped the snow-covered sidewalks of Park City and landed comfortably inside a pop-up vodka lounge, where he was smirking at the thought of his colleagues Bernarnold ignorance. As we sat across from each other, he took his time crafting answers to my questions, hitting each beat with a sort of temperate ease.

Off-screen, it was easy to see why hes HBOs go-to guy, the kind of player who can pop in and out of any thematic narrative, molding himself into an array of dense supporting characters.

Westworld is Wrights sixth project with the premium cable juggernaut, which has become the artists de facto television home. He first appeared on the network as Martin Luther King Jr. in 2002s Boycott, which won a Peabody Award for refusing to allow history to slip into the past . Since then, HBO has refused to let Wright out of its clutches. Over the past 16 years, hes starred in the Angels in America adaptation (2003), the R&B-fueled Lackawanna Blues (2005), the Prohibition-era drama series Boardwalk Empire (2013) and the Anita Hill biopic Confirmation (2016).

Hes a world-class actor, HBO Programming Chief Casey Bloys said. Just on our network alone hes played MLK, hes played a gangster and hes played an empathetic robot. I dont know many actors who would be able to pull that range, not only of characters but also of tones of shows and movies. He brings this depth and humanity to his characters, and I think thats why we continue to go back to him and why hes so in demand.

Now hes the glue holding Westworld together. And maybe, after all this time, HBO, too. On screen, Wright is the kind of performer who captures your gaze the minute he enters a frame, his deep, gravelly voice entrancing viewers into a meditative-like state. His affectations are subtle yet deliberate, like the creaking of an old wooden floor in a suspenseful thriller. Wright is, as Bloys and others have said, a first-rate actor.

Jeffrey has this real intensity, his Angels in America co-star Mary-Louise Parker told me. I have not talked to him about it, but I feel like its largely inspired by his intellect. And hes not putting it on. He doesnt come in with a whole lot of need, which is really, Parker paused, gathering her words, I dont know, its kind of hot, she giggled over the phone.

Hes a super sexy guy, obviously, but you dont feel like he needs a lot from you, and he doesnt. He doesnt. But he has a bucket-load to offer both from his life experience and from his ideas.

That sex appeal might be hard to comprehend if youre a fan of the Jeffrey Wright whos played Bill Murrays mystery-obsessed neighbor in Broken Flowers, electricity wiz Beetee in The Hunger Games franchise or Bonds CIA operative pal Felix Leiter in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. The beauty of Wright, though, is his chameleon-like qualities, which allow him to be cast as a nerd in one project and a well-worn prison inmate in another. Its why, according to him, Wright no longer auditions for parts.

I look at it this way: Ive been doing this for 30 years now. If a director cant figure out what they might get from me or whether he or she wants to work with me based on what Ive done, then I cant tell them anything more than what they dont know already.