Sienna Miller is telling me about a dream she had a few years ago. ‘I was at a carnival,’ she begins. ‘And one of the rides, or experiences, was a jar of chocolate-covered raisins. And each one was one of my memories – people could go and suck the chocolate off and just leave the raisin.’ She pauses, looks at me. That’s pretty trippy, I say. She nods.
‘It sums up absolutely everything about what my interior was experiencing – that nothing belonged to me at all.’ We’re only minutes into our conversation in a central- London hotel bar, but we are already deconstructing the actor’s trauma-inspired dreams. This, I discover after two meetings, is how it goes with Sienna Miller. She can’t help but go deep, even when she isn’t sure she should.
Our first meeting almost didn’t happen. The night before, Storm Franklin struck the UK. It was brief and brutal: trees wrenched up by their roots, riverbanks bursting. By the time I meet Miller, the storm has passed. She bounds through the door in a white T-shirt, weathered blue jeans and layered gold jewellery. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, her skin so clean it could squeak. Her easy, bohemian-adjacent style is almost a trick of the light. At a glance, it could be 2003 again, when 21-year-old Sienna Miller – even ahead of her first big film roles; Layer Cake and Alfie were both released in 2004 – was in every magazine and newspaper, headlining every celebrity-style page. After an early career as a model and with small TV parts to her name, Miller then fell in love – and fell into fame – with her Alfie co-star (and very famous man) Jude Law.
And that’s the other thing with Sienna Miller: as much as she is concerned with her life today, now a 40-year-old mother of nine-year-old Marlowe and an actress with a two-decade career, our conversation is inexorably tugged back through time. In the early 2000s, amid frankly insane celebrity-tabloid culture, a very different kind of storm raged. One that was not as brief, but was just as brutal. It’s a period of her life she calls ‘frenzied’; when she ‘couldn’t see a way out of anything; [it was] just one foot in front of the other’.
Part of the reason this is at the surface once more is Miller’s latest project: Netflix’s adaptation of Sarah Vaughan’s hit novel Anatomy of a Scandal. Miller plays Sophie Whitehouse, the wife of an MP, whose world is upended after her husband James (Rupert Friend) is accused of rape by a colleague with whom he’d had an affair. The six-part series couldn’t be timelier; it deals not just with consent, but the toxic privilege of so many in politics.
But more than that, it’s a (painfully) perfect vehicle for Miller, who has also seen her private life become overwhelmingly public. She says the most interesting thing about her character is that, ‘it was familiar terrain, because I’ve experienced some of the things that she experienced. And the feelings were familiar. [But] her way of dealing with what’s thrown at her is the absolute antithesis of what my way is. And so, in a kind of twisted, tourism sense, I just wanted to see how it would feel to react differently. I know that sounds weird,’ she adds, ‘because you’d think it would be deeply unpleasant to sit in that space.’
Miller recounts what happened when they filmed the scene in which James confesses the affair to Sophie. ‘I had a mic on my chest and there’s a heartbeat that comes in. It was my actual heartbeat being picked up by the monitor, getting faster and faster.’ Unintended it may have been, but it was ultimately (and unsurprisingly) kept in. ‘It made me think, remember and put myself back in that position.’ She laughs. ‘I really must need help, if this is what I enjoy doing!’
And, looking back, Miller is still almost-disbelieving about her entire twenties: 10 or so years that were lived – like for so many very young, very famous women both in the UK and US – in the full glare of the tabloids, with privacy dismissed as a privilege they didn’t deserve. Paparazzi followed her in cars, chased her on foot, spat at her and called her names to elicit a reaction – and pictures they could sell for more money.
‘It feels like somebody else’s existence,’ she says, still seeming a little dazed. ‘I can go and visit it and look at it, but it doesn’t feel like my life. I can’t quite believe that it all happened. And not to put it specifically on that one thing, but just the chaos of the entire decade is so far removed from my life now.’
There is a moment in Anatomy of a Scandal that I tell her – after knowing what we know now about her paparazzi hell – I found difficult to watch, when she and Friend push their way through a baying crowd of photographers. ‘Rupert also had experienced it,’ she says, ‘so those scenes weren’t pleasant for either of us, but it was weirdly interesting to kind of step back in and...’ She grapples for the right word.
‘There is something cathartic, I suppose, about spending time in an ugly space that’s familiar. And maybe reclaiming it? I don’t know what the psychology of it is. But there is something where maybe you can substitute a memory with something else.’ Well, I suggest, it’s a safe, controlled environment. And it’s consent, surely. Taking back control of something you never had control over – or could consent to – back then. She nods along.
Fame for Miller – who was born in America, moving to London as a baby – happened quite literally overnight. ‘I was just catapulted into a totally parallel universe,’ she says, ‘while being in love [with Law]. There was a lot of magic at that time. At first, it was kind of comical, but very quickly it became insidious and, yeah, scary. And my boyfriend [at the time] had been experiencing it for years and felt, understandably, a lot of hostility towards that kind of attention. So my initial reaction was the same.’
It wasn’t sustainable, though, and Miller surprised everyone – not least of all, you sense, herself – when she decided to do something about it. ‘I became so litigious, just to try and carve out an existence that I could manage,’ she says. ‘You’ve seen women implode as a result of that. You can’t hold onto sanity or grounding.’ And so, in 2008, Miller sued the worst-offending paparazzi agency for harassment and won an injunction against future breaches of her privacy. That same year, she sued (and reached an out-of-court settlement with) The Sun and the News of the World, also for invasion of privacy. She then settled with the Sunday tabloid in 2011 for damages related to phone hacking and testified – defiantly, honestly – about the impact on her life and relationships at the Leveson Inquiry later that same year.
The world today is a radically different place: tabloid newspapers are no longer the dominant force. Social media has given the famous a direct line to the world to call out published lies. And the paparazzi packs have diminished in size and ferocity. It’s clear Miller knows she effected change in her own life – there are no guys with long lenses outside her house, ever – but less so in wider culture. Yet, her commitment to accountability and change led arguably to a marked difference in how all women in the public eye were treated.
Personally, what this breathing space and receding of attention allowed to come to the fore for Miller was her work. Apart from her daughter, it’s what she is most visibly passionate about. Despite that, she has had to spend many years trying to disprove the preconceptions that still attach to actresses who happen to be incredibly beautiful, especially if they show more than a passing interest in fashion – and Miller not only launched a fashion line with her sister Savannah but also fronted campaigns for Burberry, Tod’s, Boss and Gucci.
Many journalists have described her as a ‘fashionista’ before ‘actress’ (and some still do). They express surprise at a fantastic Sienna Miller performance, even as she’s been quietly, fastidiously turning them out for several years now: Foxcatcher, American Sniper, High-Rise, American Woman.
It’s a bizarre critical amnesia and constant underestimation, which I can only assume must be really, really irritating. ‘I don’t know what more I have to do,’ she shrugs. ‘I feel like, from a young age, I’ve proven myself. Without sounding arrogant, because I’m riddled with insecurity and the lowest self-esteem – and that’s the truth, I’m not just saying it – but I think I’ve reached a point of nihilism, which I’m quite happy about. I don’t know whether that’s [because of] Covid, but I just don’t really care. I do just wish that people would be a bit more original in their thoughts.’
Covid as a priority-sharpener aside, Miller also turned 40 in December, with a small lunch at her cottage in the UK, after the original planned party had to be cancelled due to the spread of the Omicron variant. She is relieved to have not just left her twenties behind but her thirties, too, sharing that she felt, ‘pressure... [about] kids, and should I have more, and why haven’t I, and all of that, which is a really loud noise. Biology is incredibly cruel on women in that decade – that’s the headline, or it certainly was for me. Then I got to 40 and I froze some eggs. Having been really focused on the need to have another baby, I’m just like, if it happens, it happens. That kind of existential threat has dissipated.’
Miller, coming to the end of a stay in London, is about to move back to New York and, realising a long-held dream, into a place she bought for herself and Marlowe, who she co-parents with her ex, the actor Tom Sturridge. She describes herself as ‘happy’, and it quite honestly radiates off her. For all the intensity and candour of our conversation, she is absolutely cracking company – warm, curious and funny.
We speak for a second time later the same week – she’s back across the Atlantic in her new home, which needs some work, not having been redecorated since (she reckons) the 1970s. ‘I kind of love that it’s this rambling, decaying, untouched thing,’ she says, as a builder passes by. Miller greets me with a worry. ‘I was so oversharing with you the other day,’ she groans. ‘I don’t know what happened!’ I tell her not to be daft, but wonder at how tricky this all must be for her. She’s someone who is naturally both an introspective and incredibly open person, but has lived a life which has taught her to shut the door – or, at least, leave it only slightly ajar.
This time, we talk a little more about her career. The work she’s most proud of (2018’s American Woman, unsurprisingly – it’s a tour de force from Miller and it is criminal that it didn’t appear in the awards race). Her one and only foray into a big commercial blockbuster, with GI Joe in 2009 (‘It wasn’t the right vehicle for me, it wasn’t a world I was interested in, it wasn’t a character I could understand or relate to. It was a hard thing to go and support, because I thought it was pretty shit’). About her upcoming projects: the Groucho Marx-film Raised Eyebrows, and Kristin Scott Thomas’s directorial debut The Sea Change. She talks about wanting to produce in the future and possibly direct. She’d likely be brilliant at both.
But we circle back again to taking on the tabloids – it’s only been a matter of weeks since she settled claims against The Sun for ‘substantial damages’ on a no admission of liability basis. ‘Making that decision to take on Murdoch[’s company] and succeeding... It was a really difficult choice to make,’ she says of her long road to something approaching justice. And the legal battles, though hard, were key to Miller starting to regain control over her life. ‘Once you start to challenge it legally, and have minor victories, it does feel like, to some degree, you’re reclaiming a narrative or part of yourself that was taken,’ she says. ‘And that becomes empowering. That feels good.’
It’s kind of incredible that, through it all, Miller – even when she felt like those chocolate-covered raisins of her mad dream – clung on to who she was and didn’t get lost in the persona others created for her. ‘I was the same person as I am now,’ she insists, crediting ‘solid family and friends’ for that.
Now the action against The Sun has been resolved, it represents something of a line drawn under that time in Miller’s life. ‘It’s something I survived,’ she says, with emphasis. ‘It feels like the stakes were high at moments and so I’m proud of that.’ She looks a little sad, suddenly. ‘And I would love to not revisit it, but it’s a huge part of my life and story.’
Life now is firmly chaos-free. She gets up at 6:20am every day, wakes up Marlowe, eats breakfast with her, drops her at the school bus and takes the dogs to the park. She then works – reading scripts, developing her skincare line, reading books for future projects – and sometimes has lunch with a friend, and then picks up Marlowe at 3:15pm. Later, she makes dinner. ‘You know, it’s really banal at the moment,’ Miller says, laughing. ‘And then it’s really exciting!’ I tell her it sounds lovely – and as though it couldn’t be further away from the world that once threatened to pull her under.
‘I like the tranquillity of it,’ she confirms. ‘There’s just much less anxiety, for no specific reason, other than maybe turning 40 and surrendering to being on some sort of life journey that is completely irrelevant. I think I know what matters to me: my friendships, my child and, ultimately, trying to be happy. That really is enough, with bursts of intensity and creativity. And, you know, way too much fun still at times, but I feel more in control of my life. And that’s really, really relieving.’
It doesn’t surprise me one bit to hear that too much fun is still very much on the menu in Miller’s life. Some women have a spark; Miller has a fire. And what of love, these days, the thing that in some ways began this whole crazy journey, when she was a 21-year-old who happened to fall for someone? ‘I love love more than anything,’ she says without hesitating. ‘That’s the most important thing to me and it always will be. So, in spite of whatever ups and down that I’ve had – many joyful and many extremely painful – I feel pathologically optimistic about my ability to give and receive love.’ She stops herself; she seems unsure of how much more to reveal of who, if anyone, might be receiving it.
This is how it is with Sienna Miller. But now, the decision, the control, is hers. It, and she, belongs to nobody else.
Anatomy Of A Scandal is on Netflix from 15 April
ELLE's May issue hits newsstands on April 7, 2022.
