Marisa Tomei joins season two of War as Avery Reed

marisa tomei has joined season two of Sky and HBO’s legal drama War and will play Avery Reed. Sky said Tomei will lead the next chapter alongside Kelly Macdonald and David Harewood, as the series moves toward a later-this-year debut for season one.

The new cast gives the two-season order a second ensemble before the first installment has aired. Season two will center on an explosive defamation case, while season one follows a high-profile divorce case between tech titan Morgan Henderson and international film star Carla Duval.

George Kay's two-season plan

War was created by George Kay and is a Sky and HBO legal drama set around two London law firms, Cathcarts and Taylor & Byrne. Kay is also the lead writer, and Ben Taylor is the series’ lead director.

The casting announcement lands ahead of the season one launch later this year, when the first installment will introduce Dominic West and Sienna Miller in the divorce case that anchors the opening season. The series already has a two-season order, so the addition of a season-two lead cast gives the production a clear runway beyond the debut episodes.

Marisa Tomei in season two

Tomei will play Avery Reed. Macdonald is set as Jo MacNeil, Harewood as Jefferson Allen, and Richard Schiff as Elliott Wyatt in season two.

The production is co-produced by New Pictures and Observatory Pictures in association with Sky and HBO. For viewers, the immediate takeaway is simple: the series is not arriving as a one-off legal drama, but as a story designed to carry from a divorce case in season one into a defamation case in season two.

Sky and HBO lineup

The lead-cast reveal also places three more established names into the series before the first season reaches viewers. That makes the later-this-year launch the entry point, not the finish line, for a project already built with a second season in view.