Sienna Miller Interviews

YOU KNOW HER AS A FASHION PLATE AND A TABLOID FIXTURE. NOW MEET SIENNA MILLER THE ACTRESS. IN A REMARKABLY CANDID INTERVIEW THE STAR Of CASANOVA DISHES ABOUT PUSHY PAPARAZZI, LANDING A ROLE THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE "BEING PSYCHOTIC," AND LIFE WITH - AND WITHOUT" JUDE LAW.

Interview was taken from Premiere Magazine.

SHE IS EVEN PRETTIER IN PERSON, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR ONLY frame of reference is photographs captured in the harsh glare of paparazzi flashes. Slight but steely, with a hearty, omnipresent laugh that instantly endears her, she is, despite her almost constant presence in the tabloids, friendly, funny, gracious, and surprisingly unguarded. But underneath the bright, bubbly exterior, there's a hint of vulnerability as well—hardly surprising considering the year she's had. Sienna Miller got engaged to her Alfie costar, Jude Law, in December io 04, capping off a courtship that saw her rocket from unknown starlet :o iconic It girl. Her boho fashion stylings were acclaimed by magazine editors and designers; she even had a handbag named after her. Then, last July, a British newspaper reported that Law had had a fling with his children's nanny, and Miller's universe imploded.

"You see your name on the cover of a newspaper, you can't help but look," she says of the insanity that followed."Day-to-day, I wouldn't look, but if there is some major thing then I have to read it... in case I want to sue them. It really bothers me because it's people's interpretations of you that are totally wrong." tier aencaie leaiuiea convey a mixture of hurt and incredulity. "You have to swallow an awful lot of pride and say it's fine, that the people around me know me and I don't care what other people think, but you can't help but care. I heard the other day that there were people in L. A. selling T- shirts saying 'TeamSienna'nextto'TeamAniston/ and I felt like this victim." She sighs and takes a sip of water."I don't want to be seen as some little girl. I'm quite tough and proud."

IT IS HALLOWEEN, AND MILLER IS DRESSED appropriately in ablack ribbed men's tank top, a long black skirt, and ablack Alexander McQueen scarf decorated with skull patterns. We are sitting in a smart diner in London's Maida Vale district, talking about her first starring role, in Lasse Hallstrom's period romp Casanova. She plays Francesca, the auburn-haired proto-feminist cross-dresser and swordswoman who tames Heath Ledger's legendary lothario. "I was just thrilled to get a role that didn't involve taking my top off or being psychotic," she says with a laugh, digging into her lunch of grilled haloumi cheese. "It was just a really lovely character, and a challenge to be the one serious thing in the story, because naturally I would want to try and be funny. I was having to restrain myself from raising an eyebrow."

Even those who've seen the 24-year-old actress in Alfie or the British crime caper layer Cake won't find her easy to recognize beneath Fran-cesca's disguises and unflattering wig. "She's not supposed to be particularly attractive, not that I am," she says. "We changed her hairline a little bit, and it's not a pretty wig. We added eyebrows and put on weight."

"She stood out from the start," says Hallstrom (Chocolat), who cast her on the strength of her audition/'There's something about the Brits. If you compare the American girls to the British ones, [there's] a certain elegance, a certain class that, if you're lucky, comes with English actors. And she's a classy actress with great instinct."

Filming on location in Venice was "fucking amazing," says Miller. "We did the whole thing [there, with] camera equipment on boats. And then it floods in November, so we were wading to work." She made one mistake while there: watching Nicolas Roeg's Venice-set shocker Don't Look Now, on her own. "The stupidest thing I've ever done," she says. Several times, walking along an empty backstreet, she'd think about that film and start running—very fast.

She was born in New York, but the family moved to London when she was one. Her father is an American banker, and her South African mother ran the now- defunct London branch of the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. "I was brought up in a very creative household," she says. "My mum went into labor with me at the ballet"—it was The Nutcracker Suite—"and we used to go to the ballet, the opera, and the theater all the time. I remember watching people onstage, thinking, 'Their job is to dress up and play; I want to have that job.' To be a professional player—I couldn't think of anything more fun." She left school at 18, did a spot of modeling, spent a year in Manhattan at the Strasberg Institute, costarred in TV's wisecracking cop series Keen Eddie, and made a memorable if fleeting appearance in layer Cake. ("A complete slut," she says of her character. "It was very gratuitous and slightly pointless.") Then came her role as a charismatic, troubled party girl in Alfie. And Jude Law:

"There was an instant chemistry, but it was a little lopsided because she was alittle gaga,"re-calls the film's director, Charles Shyer."She had toldme,'You don't understand; growing upjude Law was such a big deal, I had his picture on my pinboard.'And so she was really highly nervous."

"He's suchafuckingliar!"Miller screams, though it's hard to tell how pissed off she really is because she's also laughing. "He does this in interviews to wind me up." And succeeds, clearly. "I swear I did not have a poster of him on my wall." Nevertheless, she and Law were an item by the time the film had finished shooting." We rehearsed very intensely and did dance classes, which are an incredible way to fall in love," she says. As Law's first girlfriend following the breakup of his marriage to actress Sadie Frost, Miller understood she was going to be the focus of some media attention, but in those early days it wasn't much of a concern. "Jude had been through it and was supportive. And it was kind of fun at first, ducking through alleyways, running out back doors and kitchens. It was exciting ... for a week. I don't think anyone can realize the extent of what it is, until you're really in it."

Like having everything you wear scrutinized. "Or copied," she says, picking up my fork, asking if she can have a mouthful of my pie, and digging in. "I've always liked nice clothes, and suddenly these beautiful vintage clothes that I've collected in the weirdest shops in the world are copied for a tenner in Topshop, which drives me mad. There's a perfect copy or a bit nicer, because they've added a bow."

Since Nannygate, the media attention, and particularly the paparazzi, has gotten even more invasive. "I find myself so many times sprinting down a street, at midnight, on my own, with ten full-grown, huge men fucking pegging it after me. I'm sorry, if you take away the cameras, what have you got? I'm running down the street, chasedby ten men. But for some reason if you give them a camera that's legal. It's fucking outrageous. And with all this stuff that's been going on with Jude, they've been horrible, desperate, trying to get a photo of me in

tears, so they'll shout hideous stuff at me. I've started to lash out...

[I'm] trying to have anger management."

LAST JULY, MILLER WAS MAKING HER LONDON stage debut, as Celia in As You Like It—an attempt, she says, to prove herself as an actress. "It was about a real need to be seen that I took my work seriously, that I wasn't some fashion -ista It girl with a rather famous boyfriend. I thought if I did five months of Shakespeare— and I was right—people can't say that you don't take your job seriously."

"She did fantastically," says actress Helen McCrory, who worked with Miller on both Casanova and As You Like It and has become a friend. "I think a lot of the critics arrived baying for her blood, and they were totally proven wrong." The day after the nanny story broke, however, the critics were the least of Miller's worries."The play's about love,"McCrory says, "and when your private life has been splashed over the papers, you're aware of the resonance that that's going to give the audience."

Paparazzi camped outside the stage door, and a couple even made it into the theater. "It was just unreal,"Miller says. "Fifty photographers pushing and shoving and shouting,'At least I keep my cock in my pants! 'then taking a photo." And yet she missed only one performance. "Yep. I went onstage on the Monday [after the story was published], then on the Tuesday I had another personal, huge thing happen and I just couldn't go. I felt bad doing that, but I had a very, very, very good reason, which I'm not going to go into."

It's not only the paparazzi who feel her private life is their business, she adds. "People come up to me on the street and say,'You know what I think you should do? Chuck him/ or journalists say,'So, Sienna, are you back together?'Like I would want to share my relationship with England. Is nothing sacred?"

As for stories that she was at one point pregnant with Law's baby, Miller doesn't believe that such intimate information—whether true or not—should be aired publicly. "The fact that people would think they had a right to write that, is so insensitive and outrageous," she says. "I don't know [why] being an actress or dating an actor, your entire private life suddenly becomes public property. If I was a journalist, I could never to my worst enemy write something like that."

Although her anger is palpable, some of the more frivolous and prescriptive press reports bring out her playful side: There was one story about your six...

"My six commandments. My publicist told me about that."

Actually, it was your six sex commandments.

"Sex? What were they?"

I might just have the piece with me...

"Brilliant! I might get some ideas. My six sex commandments."

She begins reading, first to herself, then out loud." 'He must stop pressuring her into marriage and should make her fall in love with him all over again.'Who makes this shit up?"she asks, somewhat perplexed. "Apparently there was also something about me giving a Thai massage to... "She stops short of mentioning the name. "Anyway, I wish I could do Thai massage and cook Thai food. That I do Thai-themed evenings for these men in my life... fucking weird."

ONE STORY SHE DOES CONFIRM IS THAT SHE was so fed up with the paparazzi she considered giving up acting. "It just got to the level where I was thinking if this is the cost of what I do, then I would rather live in some cottage and have babies, because it's not worth it. But I think I was slightly emotional at the time. Far too ostentatious to give up acting."

And so, Miller will soon be off to play Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick opposite Guy Pearce's Andy in Factory Girl. She's had her hair chopped and looks uncannily like Sedgwick, who had a history of mental illness and died of a drug overdose in 1971. Miller has met a number of Factory survivors, such as Brigid Berlin, famous for her "tit paintings" ("I've loads in my house," she says. "I've got rooms covered in tits"). But hang on—wasn't she done playing damaged, ill-fated women?

"Well, I did [the other]. Now I can go back to doing what I do best, which is getting naked."She laughs."I'm kidding. Come on, Edie Sedgwick is an extraordinary challenge. It's going to be tough making the audience sympathize with a drug addict. But I am obsessed about that era. Everything was glamorous and beautiful, and I love '60s music. It's something to really get my teeth into, dramatically really intense."

The shoot will be in Louisiana, "because we get a big tax break," so perhaps she and Law will escape the tabloids for a bit. Miller says they're still giving a lot of thought to their future together. "Most people have experienced infidelity in a relationship, at some point. The difference is this is being played out publicly, so one night if we want to spend the night together, we'll do that, and the next night we may be furious with each other and not, and this is a process of working it out. We both have stuff to discuss and understand and forgive, or not forgive. We spent two very happy years together, and I love him very deeply, and he loves me very deeply. And it's a nice idea that we could maybe work things out."