Dominic West and Sienna Miller star as a divorcing couple in the new eight-part legal drama War, where their scenes together are filled with contempt despite their strong chemistry. The pair first worked together 21 years ago in the West End production of Shakespeare's As You Like It.
A Juicy Legal Drama
West plays Morgan Henderson, a social media billionaire, while Miller plays Carla Duval, a Hollywood star seeking half of her philandering ex's wealth with the help of her legal team. Neither character has much to recommend them, and Miller admits she struggled to find Carla's human aspects until she decided to have fun leaning into her unappealing qualities.
West, who was cast first, says the BBC podcast Good Bad Billionaire helped him find his way into playing a 'benign billionaire'. He notes that only a handful of billionaires covered could be considered 'good', basically those who give away all the money.
Inspiration and Real-Life Cases
Creator George Kay says only one scene was inspired by real events, when Olivia Wilde was served custody papers at a public event on behalf of Jason Sudeikis. The show was inspired by a conversation Kay overheard in an airport lounge queue, where a woman screamed 'Yes!' into her phone because her husband had finally signed divorce papers after a four-year battle.
Kay, a child of the 90s, loved big law shows like Ally McBeal and The Good Wife, and wanted to create something with similar zip and repartee. This is why the cast is so comedian-heavy, including Miles Jupp and Nick Mohammed as solicitors at rival firms.
Public Scrutiny and Personal Experience
Both actors have experience with public scrutiny of their private lives. West had a brief period of 'marital scrutiny' in late 2020, while Miller endured years of intense hounding during her relationship with Jude Law. She won damages in 2011 for phone hacking by the News of the World, gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry, and settled with News Group Newspapers in 2021.
Miller says playing Carla was a form of reframing for herself, to pretend at it and remember how crazy that was as a way of living. Kay says the actors' personal experiences didn't influence casting or writing, as they resisted meta-referencing.
Money and Divorce
Miller says she has been in proximity to people with huge amounts of money and doesn't see them as happier, calling it 'a revolting amount of money'. West adds that if you have several hundred billion and aren't solving the climate crisis, then something's deeply wrong.
War premieres on Sky Atlantic on Friday 2 October at 9pm.
