Breaking her silence over her exit from “The Affair”, actor Ruth Wilson has said she decided to leave the television drama because there were things she “didn’t feel safe about.”
The Showtime series, which ran for five seasons, explored the emotional effects of an extramarital relationship between Noah Solloway (Dominic West) and Alison Bailey (Wilson) after they casually meet at the diner where she works.
Wilson, who earned a Golden Globe in the best actress in the TV drama category in 2015 for her role as Alison, left the series in its fourth season.
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“The reason I haven’t gone into ‘The Affair’ is that I haven’t worked out how to discuss it. There’s a lot of noise and anger surrounding it, and really the power rests with me to choose how I discuss my life and my experiences, she told Stylist magazine.
In 2018, the 38-year-old actor told The New York Times her departure from the show was not “about pay parity, and it wasn’t about other jobs, (but) I’m not really allowed to talk about it”.
In the same interview, she encouraged the interviewer to contact showrunner Sarah Treem for more information as “there is a much bigger story“.
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Wilson departed the series following friction with Treem over the direction of her character and what multiple sources described as a “hostile work environment,” the latter of which involved a 2017 investigation by parent company CBS.
The actor added what matters is that she stood up for herself.
What’s important to say is that I did speak up. I did have a voice. I did stand up for myself. There was a situation on ‘The Affair’ where things didn’t feel right, and I dealt with them, and I managed to protect myself.
It was before #MeToo and before Harvey Weinstein - and yet my instincts were very clear and strong about what I felt was wrong, about what was going on, and what I didn’t feel safe about, she said.
Wilson will next reprise her role of explorer Marisa Coulter in the upcoming season two of the BBC/HBO fantasy series “His Dark Materials”.