The Affair’s Dominic West

Dominic West, who plays Noah Solloway in The Affair, discusses the groundbreaking series.

WS: What appealed to you about Noah Solloway? What did you find interesting about him?
WEST: I know him and I quite like him. He’s an ordinary guy and a decent guy; he’s a good dad and he’s a husband. Essentially the role examines what happens in midlife to some men when they feel they are creatively stunted or sexually unadventurous, or they haven’t lived their lives as they wished they had. That’s quite a potent subject and I like him for that. I also like him because I think he’s a bit of an idiot a lot of the time, but men are and I think he’s ultimately likeable because he’s an honest man.

WS: Each episode of season one is told from two points of view, one half shows Noah’s recollection of events, and the other half Alison’s. I found that extremely interesting as a viewer. Was that also an interesting challenge for the actors?
WEST: Yes, very much so. It means that you are almost playing two different characters and in season two they are using four viewpoints, so you get the viewpoints of Noah’s wife and Alison’s husband as well. It’s interesting because you get to play sometimes extreme versions of your character, especially this season because Noah and his wife are going through a divorce, so her recollection or her viewpoint of his behavior is extremely different from what his recollections are. That interests me a lot in the narrative: subjective viewpoints are how we experience everything in life. So it seems to me a very real way of telling a story. It’s interesting as an actor because you get to play a swaggering lothario and also a rather timid reticent man, depending on the viewpoint, so it stretches the character a little more.

WS: What does that says about objective reality—does it really exist?
WEST: Well, it doesn’t of course. I suppose it does in hindsight, but certainly in something very domestic and personal and something as volatile or emotional as a divorce or an affair, you’re not going to get a lot of objective reality.

WS: Was Noah looking to have a fling, or were there deeper reasons for the affair?
WEST: That’s interesting. Certainly on the surface he had no intention. He was a happily married man with four children he loved and he would have hated to disrupt them or hurt them in any way, so I think absolutely not. But through this totally irrational impulsive affair he discovers that he is not feeling completely whole, and therefore [is tempted by] reckless behavior, and it makes him realize what is lacking in his marriage. What I think is crazy is that he ditches the whole marriage! But he does it I think for reasons of integrity and of honesty and also for reasons of excitement, obviously sexual as well as creative. It rather overtakes him, this girl and the power she has over him.

WS: I find that The Affair has a lot of nonverbal communication that depicts state of mind, motivation and emotion. Is it harder to get moods across with looks and gestures than with words?
WEST: It’s very interesting you say that. We usually cut down a bit from some of the writing because every beat is written and I often say, actually we can get all of that with a look. And they are very happy to cut some of the stuff anyway. I love the words and I love the writing, but it’s become very apparent to me now when there is too much written and that we can convey far more in looks and gestures and in the way body language relates the story. I find all of that very interesting and the added advantage is that I don’t have to do it in an accent that is not my own! [Laughs]

WS: I meant to ask, is the accent difficult to maintain?
WEST: A bit because Ruth [Wilson, who plays Alison] is British as well and we chat on the set and we don’t stay in character, so we sort of put ourselves up against it. We’ve got pretty good at it now, but it’s always a challenge. It’s interesting because it helps you create a distance between yourself and the character, which I find is always useful. But I’ve always found it difficult to play American, especially an emotional or angry scene. But that is part of the challenge and part of why I like doing it.

WS: You’ve had a variety of roles, including costume dramas, movies like Pride, TV shows The Wire and The Hour. What do you look for in the roles you choose?
WEST: Something different, something I haven’t done before, something that is a challenge and something that I find resonates in some way with what I find interesting in life. I did Pride mainly because I had a 2-minute solo disco dance in the middle of it! You have to feel that something in the character resonates with you and that you have something to say about that character. Or that something is going to be fun or enjoyable or connects with you in playing that. Honestly, it comes down to good writing, really, because there’s not much of it around. I don’t get offered a great deal of really good writing, so I jump at it when it becomes available.

WS: And a lot of that seems to be moving to television nowadays, at least in the U.S.
WEST: Yes, if you were Charles Dickens you would be writing for television nowadays! In long-form television you are able to go into great amounts of detail that movies cannot.

WS: The Wire was such a game-changing show. Was it also for you and your career and what did you enjoy about playing McNulty?
WEST: It was, I suppose, a game changer and it’s still what people know me for and it enabled me to get out of whatever box I might have been in in terms of casting. As a Brit and I might have done costume dramas all my life! I’ve done many costume dramas but The Wire enabled me to say I can travel a long way from myself and hopefully make it believable. It was also such an interesting, well-written show and one that you really hadn’t seen the likes of before. In many ways it changed a lot of things about television series, certainly about cop shows or depictions about life on the street. I’m unusually proud of being involved in it and what I loved about it was the writing and the other people who were involved in it. And I liked playing McNulty because I suppose I am most comfortable in flawed but ultimately likeable antiheroes. That’s good fun to play because you get to do the right thing and you are heroic in some ways in spite of yourself and of your own flaws, which I think interesting.

WS: You’ve worked on both sides of the Atlantic. How do the budgets and productions of the U.S. shows compare to the British shows you’ve worked on? And what’s more important, the quality of the writing or the size of the budget?
WEST: [Laughs] Often they come together in some way! Yes, the difference between the two industries is size and money. So it’s always nice when you have a nice American budget and a pool of talent that you have in America, particularly in writers. But Abi Morgan in The Hour, that’s a great writer. It was really fun playing her writing, but had she had more resources, I think the show might have gone on longer and it might have been more easily sustained.

WS: What upcoming projects do you have?
WEST: I’m shooting The Affair till November and then I’m doing a play, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, at the Donmar Warehouse in London just to keep my hand in theater. Then we’ll see, I don’t know what will happen after that.

WS: I hope there will be another season of The Affair.
WEST: Oh, I think there will be, I think there will be.