Dominic West and Sienna Miller have reunited on screen for the first time in years, and from the sounds of it, the new show is going to be unmissable. The pair star in War, an eight-part legal drama that puts them front and centre as a divorcing couple locked in a bitter, high-stakes split. West plays a social media billionaire, Miller a narcissistic film star, and together they bring a crackling energy to every scene they share.
Sitting down in a London hotel to talk about the show, the two are relaxed and clearly comfortable around each other. That comfort makes sense. They first worked together back in 2004 in a West End production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, so there’s more than two decades of history between them. Miller says that kind of existing rapport is genuinely rare and valuable when you’re stepping into a role that demands instant intimacy.
“So many times you turn up on the first day and you’re supposed to be married to someone you’ve never met,” she says. “Having some sort of rapport already just makes everything easier.”
The chemistry between them is obvious, which makes it all the more entertaining that their characters spend most of the series absolutely despising each other. Nearly every scene they share is loaded with contempt and tension, which fits the story perfectly even if it means their natural warmth has to stay buried beneath layers of bitterness and legal warfare.
One of the standout moments in the show involves West’s billionaire character goading someone into stripping for money. It’s an uncomfortable scene, and deliberately so. West says it gets at something real about extreme wealth and the power it hands people over others.
“That’s the kick billionaires must get,” he says. “That people would do anything for money.”
It leads to a lighter moment in the interview when West turns the question on himself and starts working out what it would actually take for him to do the same. Miller laughs and reckons he’d do it just for the laugh. West is more considered about it.
“No, I’d want three figures,” he says with a grin. “A hundred quid.”
The show arrives at an interesting moment for both stars. West has been no stranger to public attention around his personal life in recent years, and Miller has long dealt with intense media scrutiny of her relationships going back to her early career. Neither of them is particularly precious about it, but both acknowledge that War puts them in territory that feels unusually close to the bone given the themes it explores around fame, money, and the very public unravelling of a marriage.
The legal drama format gives the show a strong backbone, with the divorce proceedings driving the plot forward and forcing both characters to have their worst moments examined in detail. It is the kind of structure that lets writers dig into how people behave when the stakes are personal and financial at the same time, and how wealth can warp even the most basic human interactions.
West’s billionaire is not straightforwardly villainous, which makes him more interesting. There are moments where he seems reasonable, even sympathetic, before something like the stripping scene pulls the rug out and reminds you exactly what kind of person he is underneath the polished surface. Miller’s film star is described as narcissistic, but again the show seems to be going for complexity rather than caricature.
With eight episodes to play with, War has plenty of room to let both characters breathe and evolve. The divorcing couple setup is well-worn territory for drama, but the combination of social media billions, Hollywood fame, and two leads with genuine history between them gives it a fresh angle.
War is shaping up to be one of the more talked-about British dramas of the year, and if the chemistry between its two leads is anything to go by, it will more than deliver on its promise.