War, the new HBO drama about a high-profile divorce between a movie star and a billionaire tech founder, opens with Dominic West cheating on Sienna Miller. Or, more accurately, Dominic West’s character of Morgan Henderson cheats on Sienna Miller’s character of Carla Duval. It’s a scene that feels scandalous but also, well, familiar.
It seems like West does his spouse dirty in every show he stars in. Behold the curriculum vitae: Jimmy McNulty in The Wire, a serial womanizer whose wife, Elena, leaves him due to his infidelity. In later seasons, he has an affair with the assistant state’s attorney. Noah Solloway in The Affair, which, as the title implies, is a show about a guy who cheats on his wife. Then there’s Prince Charles in The Crown. You know the story. (Then there’s the case of life possibly imitating art, when in 2020 West was spotted extracurricularly scootering around Rome with his then costar Lily James. Amid the ensuing tabloid storm, the actor walked outside his Cotswolds home with his wife Catherine FitzGerald. They left a note that read: “Our marriage is strong, and we’re very much still together. Thank you.” The moment was instantly memed.)
With all respect to West’s previous cheating-on-television canon, War might be his finest adulterous work. War is glossy, catty, and glamorous, swinging between multimillion-dollar townhomes in West London and high-end lawyer’s offices where they have retainers; the characters are so rich that they wear million-dollar watches and so bitchy they’ll stab each other in the back to get what they want. “Every man has his price,” says Morgan while drinking green juice at a five-star hotel. “And mine is prohibitively high.”
West plays his cheating roles deftly: He’s just smarmy enough that you believe his transgression, but not smarmy enough that you loathe him for it. In War, for example, Morgan Henderson does indeed cheat on his wife with a 20-something aspiring actress. But as it turns out, Morgan’s actually a pretty great stepdad, whereas Carla’s parenting skills have more…mixed reviews. (During a research and discovery session, Carla’s lawyers find out from a Hollywood director that “she wanted to get away from her family” and was “not exactly the maternal type.”) In The Crown, Prince Charles did humiliate Princess Diana. But Prince Philip pressured him into that marriage and Charles really, really loves Camilla Parker Bowles. (West himself admitted to The Sunday Times that his own tabloid drama shaped his role as Prince Charles. “I’d had a very acute understanding of what it’s like to feel the horror of your name or your photograph coming up in the newspapers,” he says.) As for Noah? The Affair is told with a dual his-and-hers narrative. Each episode shows the perspective of West’s Noah as well as his paramour, Ruth Wilson’s Allison. As a result, the viewer is unable to truly villainize either. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango.
Then there’s his looks: He’s rakish yet age-appropriate, straddling the delicate aesthetic line where you both understand why a woman might be attracted to him, but also that this is a man having a midlife crisis. “I have been made redundant—by my wife,” West’s Morgan grumbles to his business colleague.
Miller—who is no stranger to extramarital tabloid scandals herself—has also mastered her getting-cheated-on performances. In Anatomy of a Scandal, she played Sophie, the wife of a British cabinet member who is accused of having an affair with (and eventually sexually assaulting) his young aide. She tries to piece together the truth wearing a number of sumptuous Max Mara coats. You feel for Sophie—but you don’t pity her: The show delves into her psyche as she debates leaving her husband and the lifestyle he can provide. The final episode culminates in her starting a new life with her children in the country.
In the first episode, West’s Morgan serves divorce papers to Miller’s Carla at her own movie premiere.
Courtesy of HBOArguably part of the reason War is so delicious is that the two actors, at the top of their adulterous craft, are finally squaring off against each other. You root for both and therefore root for neither. You do root, however, for more gossipy drama to blow up in their faces. (Like when Morgan figures out Carla is filing for divorce because The Daily Mirror runs a paparazzi picture of her with lawyers in Paris—and rushes to beat her to filing.) But it’s also because, well, War deliberately plucks plot lines that pop in our pop-cultured riddled brains. On a macro level, that means the casting of West and Miller. On a micro level, it’s specific moments, like when Miller’s Carla gets served divorce papers at her own premiere—reminiscent of when Olivia Wilde got served custody papers while speaking onstage at CinemaCon.
Maybe that’s why War works so well. The tabloid business is based on our infinite fascination with imploding celebrity relationships: Who among us hasn’t clicked on something about Kim and Kanye, Jen and Brad, J.Lo and Ben, or Gwyneth and her “conscious uncoupling”? War allows that to scratch that lowbrow itch in our brains in a highbrow, HBO way—by casting two of the very celebrities we associate with such a scandal.
It also gives us more sordid details that we could have ever gossiped about. War brings us inside the lawyers boardrooms and peels back the pages of prenups of the rich and famous. A key plot point of War is that Carla wants their prenup thrown out, as Morgan got around $700 million richer during their marriage. Meanwhile, Morgan’s law firm, Cathcarts, is desperate to make Carla look like a frivolous, Marie Antoinette–level spender—cataloging that she spent 300 pounds on hand-cut Norwegian ice. Carla’s law firm, on the other hand, is desperate to cover up that the aforementioned 20-something Henderson cheated on their client with was a honey trap, planted by his wife who wants ammo for her divorce filing.
It’s the perfect low-stakes mess. Both characters are wealthy enough that even if their net worth’s got halved, they’d still live a lavish life; both characters are morally complicated enough that you don’t feel either of them are wronged. You just get to sit and watch it play out by the perfect couple. As West’s Morgan says about his own divorce: “This is horrible. And I’m very sorry about it!”