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THEENDOF‘THEAFFAIR’
‘ITHINKMOSTPEOPLE
FINDMONOGAMY
CHALLENGING’
ASTHEFIFTHANDFINALSERIESHITSOURSCREENS
MAURATIERNEY TALKSABOUTMARRIAGEFIDELITY
ANDTHE‘PRETTYDARK’SHOWDRAWINGTOACLOSE
E
xploring the emotional
fallout of infidelity in
relationships, The Affair
has provided endless
water cooler ‘but what do you
think?’ moments.
Starring Ruth Wilson,
Dominic West, Joshua Jackson
and Maura Tierney, the show’s
fifth and final season is about to
kick off. But Maura tells us she
thinks now is the right time for
it to conclude. ‘The end feels
appropriate, we’ve had a really
good run and Helen was a great
character to play, but it’s time to
move on,’ she says.
The Affair uses flashbacks
to explore how we all recollect
emotive events differently and,
in the fifth series, we even skip
forward into the future.
Maura’s character Helen
shares four children with Dominic
West’s Noah Solloway, and
playing a mother is something
54-year-old Maura found a
challenge, as she doesn’t have
children of her own. ‘My sister
has three children, so I talk to her
a lot about it,’ she explains.
Before The Affair – for which
she won a Golden Globe for
Best Supporting Actress in 2016–
Maura was best known for her
roles on the sitcom NewsRadio
and medical drama ER.Here, Maura opens up about
her opinions of fidelity, why
she’s not on social media and
returning to her comedy roots
after The Affair...What’s the secret of The
Affair’s success?
The writing is good, the acting
is good, and the whole premise
is really sexy. The writing
explores this notion of, what do
you do when you have dark and
selfish impulses and you actually
follow them through? Most
people don’t do that, so it’s
interesting to watch
what happens.Why is the world
so fascinated
by affairs?
It’s hard to live your
life monogamously
for 50 years, I think
most people find
it challenging.
With The Affair, it’s
interesting to watch
a very truthful,
honest, ugly
and sometimes
beautifulexamination of something that
most people have thought
about, if not done.Has the show opened up
any conversations with your
friends about affairs?
Friends of mine who have had
affairs have told me about
them, but it wasn’t fun. I didn’t
enjoy having that information,
although it’s nice to be
someone’s confidante.Are you sad the show is
coming to an end?
For me, the end feels
appropriate. We’ve had a really
good run and Helen was a great
character to play, but it’s time to
move on.The fifth series looks at the
aftermath of the horrific
events of season four – what
can viewers expect?
There are some new characters in
the show this year. Helen meets
a Hollywood actor and they start
dating, and Anna Paquin has
also joined the show playing the
character of Joanie – I can’t wait
to see what she brings.p pMaura as
Dr Abby
Lockhart
in ERWith Dominic West
as Noah and Helen
Solloway in The Affair