Sienna Miller: “It´s always a dilemmna”

Sienna Miller

SIENNA MILLER: “IT’S ALWAYS A DILEMMA”

SHORT PROFILE

Name: Sienna Rose Diana Miller
DOB: 28 December 1981
Place of birth: New York City, NY, United States
Occupation: Actor

April 19, 2017

Ms. Miller, although you’ve surely been offered compelling leading roles since Foxcatcherand American Sniper, we continue to see you in supporting ones. How come?

I found that hard to balance with motherhood. I’ve done a play, which you can kind of get away with because you have the days off, but the idea of three months on set in every scene is really daunting. I think it’s always a struggle in whatever industry you’re in. But with acting, it’s the inconsistency that makes it complicated. I sometimes have tons of time for my daughter, which I love, but other times… I think it’s always a dilemma, isn’t it? To get that balance right, to fulfill your creative needs and also be there for your kids. So, I do find that now I'm a parent, my ambition has, to a certain degree, dwindled.

Which is normal for any parent, no?

Of course. I think I’ve just realized that there is something more important than my career and my own needs — and that's my child. I've never been the most ambitious person in the world, you know, I've always prioritized family and friendship, or put that on a par with my career. It's not the only thing that I see as a fulfillment in my life. I think to be really successful you have to probably be a little bit more driven than I find I am, you know, in terms of strategizing and doing releases that will make money so that you get value… You have to compromise artistically, and I've never been that good at doing that.

“Acting is the only thing I ever remember wanting to do.”

Nonetheless, you seem to have a very clear idea of what you want from your career. 

Well, acting is the only thing I ever remember wanting to do. I remember always putting on plays at home and dressing up… I'm still not clear on why I was so set on it but I never really allowed myself to imagine doing anything else. It was too expensive to go to the theater all the time, but I loved it when I did! My mum would sometimes take us to the theater or the ballet. I remember really distinctly this thing Richard Burton did called Anne of the Thousand Days. It was about Anne Boleyn and I was obsessed with it. I loved The NeverEnding Story as well, the usual people like Katharine Hepburn, Judi Dench, Clara Bow, silent movie stars, Chaplin films, things like that.

Those are quite highbrow choices for a kid.

I guess always responded to things on an intuitive kind of level. I'd read lot of plays, I'd always read literature… I think I've always had a big imagination, which is sometimes a very inspiring thing and pleasant thing and sometimes not the easiest to navigate and manage. I think that movies and plays kind of cultivated an imagination that helps with acting. I think that's why I love theatre: the investigation and research and experience.

Do you fear you’ll ever grow out of it?

I don’t think I’m ever going to stop wanting to see and experience things. I think the day that you don’t long for that anymore is the day you have kind of given up. I don’t imagine ever not wanting to explore and see and grow and develop as a person. That is the point of existence in many ways. I love my job for that reason and I hope that I never grow out of it. Sure, there are some roles I could probably do standing on my head and get away with… But I would be bored out of my mind! Whether for a film or not, I would leap at the opportunity to learn a new skill.

You also trained with a Michelin-starred chef for a part, right?

Increasingly as I get older I want to do more and more of that, like in La La Land, learning all those dances and songs… That would have been great. I’ve also learned to belly dance and sword fight, I got to research the life of cartographer and explorer Percy Fawcett and his wife for my role in The Lost City of Z recently, which was interesting because I think when I first started out people thought I was very modern. It was hard for me to do period pieces.

People didn’t really know how to place you.

Exactly and I think I had a strong perception fashion-wise, which probably didn’t help. But I do look back feel like I played diverse characters but these days I do make a real effort to look different in every film so that I broaden people’s horizons. I don’t know if people have the imagination you assume they would. If they’re casting someone with brown hair they tend to cast an actress with brown hair, you know? People tend to be that narrow-minded in Hollywood, and I think in order to break down those perceptions, you have to really change your physicality. I think you have to relinquish vanity in films. Young women tend to get pigeonholed, and I think I was a victim of that.

“Your response to underestimation is either to be defeated by it or to rebel against it. And I am just inherently rebellious.”

Do you think your career suffered because of that?

Well, it wasn't like I was locked in a room not working ever or anything, I don't walk around feeling underestimated. But it was a real battle when I was growing up and when I was young because I felt like I was a sort of a media creation… I was watching this life play out and it wasn't who I was and that was very, very unsettling. I don't think people assume that you are intelligent or well-read if you are a young actress in Hollywood, who kind of has fun and is English and a bit goofy.

How did you deal with such misperceptions?

I would say I'm pretty resilient. (Laughs) I think I have more of an understanding of myself these days, which helps, but that's just getting older. Motherhood is very grounding in that way. But in the context of my life, it's relatively easy to overcome that kind of thing because I don't give it any gravitas or any thought anymore. I'm not a woman in a situation where I don't have a voice. I do have a voice. And now I would really stand up for myself against that kind of belittling behavior. I wouldn't ever let anyone underestimate me now. Not to my face, at least.

I’m sure at the time it also allowed you to shatter people’s expectations.

If there's defiance in you, then yes, it can be galvanizing and I think for me that was my response ultimately. But the frustration… I'd love to just not have to deal with people asking, “What changed?” I’m like, “Nothing! I was always this fucking person, you just didn't want to see it.” (Laughs) I do think that your response to kind of underestimation is either to be defeated by it or to rebel against it. And I am just inherently rebellious.

THE TALKS

Sienna Miller

Sienna Miller talks about close relationship with ex Tom Sturridge: 'We still love each other'

MARCH 01, 2017 - 10:22 GMT SHARNAZ SHAHID

Despite calling off their engagement in 2015, Sienna Miller and Tom Sturridge have remained the best of friends as they continue to co-parent their only child, four-year-old daughter Marlowe. Speaking in a new interview with Harper's Bazaar, the 35-year-old actress has revealed she still has a "lot of love" for her ex fiancé. "We still love each other," she explained. "I think in a break-up somebody has to be a little bit cruel in order for it to be traditional, but it's not been acrimonious in a way where you would choose to not be around that person."

The former lovebirds began dating in 2011 and got engaged the following year after announcing they were expecting their first child together. Although they lead private lives, the stars are often seen out and about spending time together with their daughter. "We don't live together, as has been reported recently, but we do half the time," added Sienna. "Everybody will stay over or we'll all go on holiday and that's because we genuinely want to be around each other. It's great for our daughter that she has two parents who love each other and are friends." She also noted: "He's definitely my best friend in the entire world."

VIEW GALLERY

Sienna Miller and Tom Sturridge are still the best of friends

Since parting ways, Sienna has been linked to American film director Bennett Miller. The couple were first rumoured to be dating in May last year, after they were spotted at a Met Gala afterparty in New York. At the moment, the mother-of-one is preparing for the release of her next blockbuster, The Lost City of Z. Directed by James Gray, the movie follows the story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappeared with his son in 1925 during an expedition in the Amazon. She stars alongside Charlie Hunnam in the biopic, which will be released in cinemas later this month.

HELLO

Look of the Moment / Sienna Miller II

Look of the Moment | Sienna Miller

WOMEN'S FASHION

By EDWARD BARSAMIAN

 APRIL 22, 2011, 3:00 PM 8 Comments

Splash News

The Look: A no-brainer – minimal makeup, tousled hair, the perfect LBD and a shoe with some spunk. It all adds up.

The Girl: Sienna Miller, who stars in the West End production of “Flare Path,” exiting the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

The Details: Azzedine Alaïa dress and Tabitha Simmons “Dusty” shoe.

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/look-of-the-moment/page/9/

Look of the Moment / Sienna Miller I

Sienna Miller

Look of The Moment | Sienna Miller

WOMEN'S FASHION

By EDWARD BARSAMIAN

 OCTOBER 14, 2011, 4:15 PM 3 Comments

Nick Harvey/WireImage

The Look: Fluff Piece — an electric dress with feathers and plenty of sparkling appliqués is as attention-grabbing as any bird of paradise.

The Girl: The actress Sienna Miller at the All Saints dinner at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, England.

The Details: Matthew Williamson dress, Charlotte Olympia for Matthew Williamson shoes, Jacques Fath clutch.

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/look-of-the-moment/page/6/

Washing away the guilt … Jack O’Connell and Sienna Miller in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Benedict Andrews. Photograph: Johan Persson

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof review – Sienna Miller and Jack O'Connell rattle their gilded cage

3/5stars

    

Apollo, LondonBenedict Andrews’s radical update of the classic delivers emotional intensity shot through with humour – and a blistering performance by Jack O’Connell

Michael Billington

Tue 25 jul 2017

This is a classic example of director’s theatre. It has three estimable stars in Sienna Miller, Jack O’Connell and Colm Meaney, but all the talk is likely to be of what the director, Benedict Andrews, has done with Tennessee Williams’s play. As we know from Andrews’s work at the Young Vic, which is presenting this show in the West End, he is a major force and some of his ideas are illuminating, but I still feel this is a play that should belong to its performers.

Tennesse Williams
by Andy Warhol

Andrews and his Swiss designer, Magda Willi, have taken some radical decisions. They banish scenic realism, so there is no hint that we are in a vast Mississippi delta mansion (“Victorian with a touch of the far east,” says Williams of Brick’s bedroom): instead they seize on the constant reference to cages to present us with a gold-plated prison. It is dominated by a bed and a shower, extensively used by a naked O’Connell as if to cleanse himself of his deep-rooted guilt. The action is updated to the present, with frequent use of mobile phones. This strikes me as questionable since, in the era of same-sex marriage, you feel the characters would be less shy about discussing Brick’s ambivalent relationship with his dead friend, Skipper.

The best feature of Andrews’s production is that it combines emotional intensity with a leavening humour. You feel the tension between Brick, a star athlete who has retreated into alcoholism, and his wife, Maggie, who yearns for the sexual pleasure they once enjoyed. As the characters kick at a birthday cake or hurl ice cubes about the stage, we also get a sense of the desperation surrounding the inheritance of the dying Big Daddy’s estate. Andrews appreciates that Williams was a comic writer. Big Daddy’s grandchildren – from Brick’s brother, Gooper, and his wife, Mae – are rightly seen as gaudily overdressed monsters strategically deployed by their parents.

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 Tormented … Jack O’Connell as Brick. Photograph: Johan Persson

Of the three main performers, however, the only real revelation comes from O’Connell’s Brick. He has the obsessiveness of the true alcoholic, his attention rigidly fixed on the four whiskey bottles prominently placed downstage. He also suggests the inwardness of a man locked into his own private world and still tormented by his denial of Skipper’s love and his own furtive wish to reciprocate it.

With Maggie, the bar is set high after stunning performances by Lindsay Duncan in the 1988 National Theatre revival and Sanaa Lathan in Debbie Allen’s all-black 2009 production. Miller gives a perfectly creditable performance and makes good use of her body: shedding her dignity, at one point she crawls towards Brick on all fours, with her posterior arched in the manner of a cat on heat. Her voice, however, doesn’t quite have the colour and range for Maggie’s demanding first-act litany of grievance. Meanwhile, Meaney clearly understands, intellectually, Big Daddy’s combination of rednecked Mississippi vulgarity and fear of encroaching death. All he lacks is the instinctive physical power that James Earl Jones brought to the role.

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 Verbal punches … Lisa Palfrey as Big Mama. Photograph: Johan Persson

There is good support from Lisa Palfrey as a minidressed Big Mama, riding with the verbal punches, and from Hayley Squires as the eagerly acquisitive Mae, and newcomers to the play will get a sense of its stature. But, while Williams’s study of the conflict between truth and illusion may be timeless, it works best when rooted in the detailed realism of the American South in the 1950s.

THE GUARDIAN