But that's because even before the 54-year-old portrayed one of the most infamous unfaithful husbands of all time on The Crown, he played the adulterous Noah Solloway on The Affair, which ran for five seasons and interviewers couldn't help but ask what he thought about, well... affairs!
And what he had to say was pretty fascinating, especially in hindsight after the English actor was spotted kissing his The Pursuit of Love costar Lily Jamesat lunch in Rome in October 2020, a tender scene that unromantically butted up against the fact that West had been married to Catherine FitzGerald since 2010.
Not that there couldn't have been a plethora of innocent explanations, starting with the fact that the actors had known each other for almost a decade, having shared a Sheffield stage as Iago and Desdemona in a 2011 production of Shakespeare's Othello.
They also shared a manger, AngharadWood, and he was at their table when this seemingly amorous interaction occurred.
And, incidentally, West was playing James' father in The Pursuit of Love, a miniseries based on the Nancy Mitford novel of the same name. ("Yes, it hurts," West, who's 20 years James' senior, once said about being cast as Lara Croft's father in the 2018 Tomb Raider remake with Alicia Vikander. "It does and anyone who says it doesn't is lying.")
But days later West was back home in the Cotswalds with FitzGerald, the mother of four of his five kids, and a handwritten note posted to their gates read, "Our marriage is strong and we're very much still together. Thank you." Signed, "Catherine & Dominic."
They even went outside and kissed for the cameras.
As explosive as the scandal felt at the time, not least because of the pandemic-slowed pop culture news cycle (The Pursuit of Love was one of the first big productions in the U.K. to get rolling again as lockdown rules eased), it died down pretty quickly and West and FitzGerald—who will celebrate 14 years of marriage in June—remain very much still together.
However, he told the Sunday Times, "We do joke about it sometimes. Because whenever we went out together, the papers would always say we were 'putting on a show of unity.' Even if we'd just been rowing about parking the car or whatever, even if that couldn't be further from the truth. And so when we go out we do sort of say, 'Shall we go and have a show of unity up in London?'"
Still, West added, "It was an absurd situation" that was "deeply stressful for my wife and my kids."
At least they can all laugh about it now. But West, also known for playing the not particularly monogamous Jimmy McNulty on The Wire, had plenty of occasions to pontificate and crack wise about cheating while answering for the decisions his character was making.
It was hard to tell at times in retrospect whether he was joking or giving his honest opinion, but here's what he had to say:
But What Do You Really Think?
(Originally published Oct. 13, 2020, at 3 p.m. PT)
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