On Showtime’s The Affair, Ruth Wilson plays Alison, a sexy, wounded Montauk townie who gets to roll around with both Dominic West and Joshua Jackson because, surprise, she is having an affair. We caught up with Wilson last night at the star-studded premiere of The Elephant Man on Broadway (bravo, Bradley Cooper!). Other attendees included Emily Blunt, Emma Stone, and Rose Byrne, but chances are, none of them were going to be as contemplative about cheating — not on the record, at least. “There’s always two sides of a story,” says Wilson, who’s prepping for her own opening night in Nick Payne’s Constellations with Jake Gyllenhaal.
“People have reasons for why they cheat or why they can’t stay in a relationship, and it’s not always a matter of right or wrong. Often people cheat because there’s a loss in their life that makes you look for something else.” Wilson wasn’t always this understanding. “In my 20s I was much more moralistic about this stuff. Life was more black-and-white. Now I know that there is so much gray. So much gray! To be honest, I am not so moral about these things anymore. Being a human being is hard.”