At its most basic, an actor’s job is to remove any sense of self and fully become another person. But what if that character is similar to the actor playing the role? It’s something that costume designer Matthew Price had to carefully consider for War—HBO’s new divorce drama created by Killing Eve writer George Kay—when creating the wardrobe for Sienna Miller’s character Carla Duval.
Like Miller, Duval is a British, Hollywood-famous actor who doubles as a fashion plate with an enviable wardrobe that is as good at serving up era-defining red-carpet looks as it is at sumptuous stay-at-home knits. So far, so Sienna.
“Having a character like Carla was gold dust,” Price, who immediately jumped at the chance to work on War, tells ELLE. “As she is played by an actor such as Sienna, it is a bit meta. Especially when you think about what wardrobe she must have at home.”
Price and Miller hit it off immediately, with both already on the same train of thought for how Duval—whose divorce from Dominic West’s tech boss Morgan shapes the plot—might dress. “From the first Zoom, I knew we were on the same page as we both mentioned [magazine editor] Claire Thomson-Jonville as a reference. So, you’ll see that French minimalism in what she wears, but we didn’t want to be set in stone with one silhouette.”
