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Home , Patrick Marber, Sienna Miller

purple reign “That’s ?” asked Steven Spielberg after seeing her new film. “Wow, she really pops.” Alexander Wang plum polyamide dress. Regitze Overgaard for Georg Jensen sterling- silver bracelet. Details, seriously see In This Issue. Fashion Editor: sienna Tonne Goodman. Taking on a Hollywood blockbuster and a Broadway play, Sienna Miller gets ready to go from It girl to hit girl. By Jonathan Van Meter. Photographed by Craig McDean.

f we were to begin this story in homage to . I was running away.” Now 27, she’s alluding to the the title of the book Sienna Miller is cur- defining moment of her young life, the episode—­ rently reading, our day together in New “Nannygate,” as she refers to it with genial resignation. She York City might be called Extremely Long laughs and swats the subject away (for now) with a Lucille and Incredibly Fun. But that would be Ball–­like crossed roll of the eyes. For many reasons, then, misleading, because spending time with “seeing that film felt like a few steps back.” her feels less like a fanciful passage from a It does not take long, however, for Miller to snap out of her Jonathan Safran Foer novel and more like weird mood, partly because she does not enjoy being ponder- a madcap I Love Lucy episode. ous. But she is also genuinely excited because she is about to Miller in person is tiny, blonde, blue- take two giant steps forward. On August 7, G.I. Joe: The Rise ­eyed, and, in black jeans with zippers at of Cobra opens: With a nearly $200 million budget, it is by far the ankle and a blue-­and-­white striped the biggest, most commercial film Miller has done. The same oxford shirt, just about as fetching as a girl can be. She woke month, she begins rehearsals in New York for her Broadway up on the sheepish side of the bed today. Or at least that is how debut in After , ’s new drama based she describes her mood as we sit down for lunch at the Bowery on ’s play, which will open at the American Hotel and order pizza and white wine. She watched both ver- Airlines Theatre on October 22. sions of Grey Gardens the night before, and the heartbreaking Starring in a huge summer action movie plus its antithesis, grandiosity of the mother’s and daughter’s twin showbiz delu- a clever English adaptation of a canonical nineteenth-century­ sions has lingered. “Maybe that’s what sent me into a tailspin,” Scandinavian stage play, is a surprising one-­two punch from she says, laughing. “I’m in an Edie Beale head.” But there is an actress in need of an image change—­and it is fraught with another reason she is not in full possession of her usual plucky risk. But Miller is nothing if not brave. After all, she has long confidence. Two nights ago, she sat through a screening ofThe been battling the perception that she is, variously, a superficial Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a film she made in 2006 that opened party girl, a quirky fashion plate, an almost famous indie and closed so fast this spring that if you weren’t invited to the regular with no box-­office clout, Jude Law’s ex-­girlfriend, or premiere you probably didn’t see it. all of the above. “We have to be honest about it,” says Miller It is as if she has just seen a ghost—her­ old self coming of her reputation. “It’s pretty bad. On the whole, you know, back to haunt her. Not only did she get asked on the red I’ve made some bad choices and done some stupid things.” carpet about a gaffe she had thought she’d lived down (call- In other words: It is high time for a bold move. Or two. ing Pittsburgh “Shitsburgh” when she was making the film) Playing the Baroness, a cartoony villain in an action film, but she also had to watch her own sex scenes in a theater might seem at first like an ill-conceived­ strategy for a make- filled with New York fashion people. “I don’t think I feel over. Guns and black leather? Rilly? But on inspec- comfortable getting naked now,” she says. “I can see where tion, it starts to look very clever indeed. G.I. Joe: The Rise I made the decision to make that film three years ago, but of ­Cobra is based not on the G.I. Joe action figure of the then you grow up and evolve and your tastes change. I was sixties but on the wildly popular eighties Marvel Comics in this period where I was making movies back-to-back book series and television cartoon. The film is directed by because I didn’t want to be at home. Anything to not be in Stephen Sommers, the man who unapologetically—­indeed,

86 enthusiastically—­brings you larger-­than-life popcorn fare like The Mummy and Van Helsing. What is less widely known about Sommers is that he is also the man who has persuaded English actresses like Rachel Weisz and Kate Beckinsale to work with him, women whose names do not spring to mind when one is casting action pictures. “I like very strong female characters, and somehow they all end up being British girls,” he says. “So now it’s Sienna Miller’s turn.” The film has an odd ensemble cast: Jonathan Pryce, Den- nis Quaid, Marlon Wayans, and Channing Tatum. But it is Tatum and Miller who have the most scenes together. “She is nut bags,” says Tatum, underwear model turned actor, paying Miller a big compliment. “I love her like I can’t even explain. She’s one of those people who you can’t help but be in a good mood when she’s around. She just kind of intoxicates the room.” Having almost never been in any film bigger than very small, Miller found G.I. Joe, with its crew of 1,000 and near constant explosions, to be a huge challenge. “Initially I was terrified,” she admits. “It was so out of my comfort zone. Everything gadget-­wise that I had to use actually worked. I had these little guns, and if I fired them, lights came up and they made a sound. It was Disneyland for grown-­ups.” When I ask if there was anything calculated in making such a choice, she plays it cool at first. “I’m notaverse to being in big commercial films.” But then she concedes, “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t part of my consciousness to know this would probably, hopefully, be a successful film, and that that would be a smart thing to do. But I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think it was a good project, and it was different. I was kind of exhausted by my own choices, in a way; I was very happy to be in a film that was about having fun and not emotionally grueling for me or my family or friends, where I didn’t put myself through some intense experience.” During casting, someone brought up Miller’s name, and Sommers rented a bunch of DVDs. He quickly realized what so many people do when they finally take Sienna seriously: She’s a talented and versatile actor. “For me, that role, it had to be a great actress,” he says. “Because it could be wildly over-­the-­top—­the outfit is—­so I needed someone who could ground it and make us believe that it’s real.” He adds, “Steven Spielberg saw it a week ago, and one of the first things he said was, ‘Who is that actress who plays the ­Baroness? She’s great.’ And I said, ‘It’s Sienna Miller,’ and he said, ‘That’s Sienna Miller? Wow, she really pops.’ ”

fter lunch we head upstairs to Miller’s hotel suite so she can have a smoke. She opens the door and the room is a riot of tried-­on clothes, balloons, flowers, candy wrappers, and today’s New York BRIGHT FUTURE Times spread all over the table. “I was really naive, “It’s insane, my room,” she says, thinking that if you are true to yourself laughing. “I was just suddenly inundated with sweet gifts yes- that’s enough,” she terday, but it looks like I’m having a Mad Hatter’s tea party or says. “But actually it’s my own private non-­birthday.” Her hotel room is like her life: important to become complicated, messy, public, fun. more conscious.” Nina a Ricci fuchsia silk- It’s well known that Miller has, since Jude Law, been satin one-shoulder entangled in a series of somewhat baffling, ill-­fated, and tunic, leggings, and extremely well-­documented relationships, all of which Swarovski-crystal bead seem to have burned very brightly and then crashed to necklace. Pierre Hardy gold water-snake open-toe boots with 88 leather trim. Details, see In This Issue. A BACKWARD GLANCE “I’m a real relationship the ground. From Calvin Klein model turned indie-­rock person in my essence, I’m trying to understand what it is person—contrary to heartthrob Jamie Burke to oddball 40-­ish Welsh actor Rhys that makes me that way and what it is that makes people public perception,” Ifans, there is no discernible pattern, no type. Most notori- feel that way about me.” Miller says. “It’s not hard for me to fall in ously, she took up with last summer, while love.” Gucci iridescent he was still married to his wife, Rosetta, with whom he has After an hour break during which Miller, she later tells me, emerald-and-black four children. The paparazzi shot of Sienna and Balthazar grabs a 20-­minute nap, eats a cold slice, and takes a bath, crystal-embroidered on the balcony of a hotel room in Italy—­Miller topless with she appears at my door in “a little frocklet” of her own de- silk minidress, belt, and a sailor’s hat perched on her head at a tipsy angle—­came sign, by Twenty8Twelve, and a pair of major platforms that leggings. VBH pearl- and-diamond earrings. close to self-­sabotage. When I saw it I thought, Oh, dear. zipper up the back. We jump in a town car and head up to In this story: hair, Today, she is officially single and seems a bit repentant. Times Square for a pretheater dinner. Eugene Souleiman for When I ask about her love life and use the word dating she As we inch up Sixth Avenue, I ask about her reputation as Wella Professionals; says, “I’ve actually never been taken on a date in my whole a trendsetter. “Teenage girls like certain things I wear—­or cer- makeup, Diane Kendal; life. I have never had a one-­night stand. I’m a real relationship tainly did when that whole boho thing happened. I was aware set design, Bill Doig. Produced on location person—contrary­ to public perception. I’m either in one or of it because I could see copies of the things I’d collected for by Kate Collings-Post I’m not. I get kind of emotionally involved very quickly, and years for five bucks. But I don’t feel like a particularly fashion- for North Six. Details, I’m not going to spend time with someone unless I love them. able person now; I don’t feel like I have a huge influence. I don’t see In This Issue. But it’s not hard for me to fall in love.” mean to sound too self-deprecating,­ but I don’t give too much thought to these things. I don’t wake up feeling really fashion- decide to ask about Jude Law—not­ to rehash able.” She laughs and then suddenly notices that there’s a food the past but to see if, four years out, there is any stain on her dress. She stares at me for a second as if to say, fresh insight. “It’s dangerous to bring this up,” See? “I definitely get it wrong a lot.” she says. “I talked about him in an interview not Moments later we are sitting on the third floor of Angus long ago, saying that I still love him, and he was McIndoe, a popular theater-crowd­ hangout, with Jim Car- like, ‘Please stop talking about it.’ ” She laughs. nahan, a legendary New York character who is the casting “This was going to be the first interview where I director for the Roundabout Theatre Company, which is was going to try to be guarded and detached, not staging . In the car, Miller described him as give anything away, “really charismatic, wine-­drinking, and actually I real- theater-­loving—­very up our street.” ize that it’s irrelevant. “She doesn’t pretend I am not disappointed. He is loud, You have to be yourself. . . . affable, and hilarious. “That was a very pivotal time in to be anything They haven’t seen each other in my life, and I’m happy saying that,” about six weeks, since Miller, along she continues. “It’s a private moment that she isn’t,” with Carnahan, Marber, and the when you get your heart broken for director, , auditioned the first time, and that was the abso- actors in London to be her leading lute antithesis of private.” She starts says . man. (Miller hated being on the oth- to laugh. “It couldn’t have been more er side of the auditioning process. public! I had people on the street be- “And what she is “I wanted to be in Camp Actor,” ing like, ‘ ’Ang in there, loov! ’ and all she says, “not Camp Decision.”) you want to do is crawl into a cave is this amazing Just a week ago, they cast Jonny and weep for a week.” She pauses for Lee ­Miller, and everyone is thrilled, a moment and then finds the bright ball of energy” especially ­Sienna. “He’s the nicest side. “I think I discovered a whole guy,” she says. “When I found out, new emotional depth that I didn’t have access to before. When I texted him thinking that he knew, but he obviously hadn’t you have your heart broken for the first time, you gain depth, heard yet. It was very unsubtle.” and that’s why actors tend to get better with age, I think.” “So you two know each other from . . . ?” Not all that long ago Miller, with typical English bluster, “Well, he’s Jude’s best friend,” says Miller. was loudly declaring that therapy was for the birds. When “Oh, God,” says Carnahan. I mention this, she tells me she has had a change of heart. Miller lets loose an exaggerated “evil” laugh—­“Bwah-ha-­ Turns out a lady friend in New York gently suggested Miller ­ha-ha-­ HAAAA!”—­ and­ we all crack up. “Jude’s probably seek therapy. “She took me out to lunch—­funnily enough to like, Will this woman ever disappear?” Pause for effect. a restaurant called Balthazar, which I thought was hilarious, “Yooo-­hoo!” Another big laugh. “Yeah, Jude, Jonny Lee but she never commented on the irony of that—­and she said, Miller, and Ewan McGregor lived together. They all met ‘You’ve been through hell, and you need to talk about it with when they were about ten years old at the National Youth someone.’ I got to the point where I was doing things that I Music Theatre and were best friends growing up.” didn’t necessarily think I was capable of as a person. And I Marber’s version of the Strindberg classic (the first “natu- wanted to be conscious of my actions. I think I was really naive ralistic” tragedy) relocates the action from late-­1800s Sweden and trusting and thinking that if you are true to yourself, that’s to a country house outside London, the night of the British enough, that’s the best way to be. But actually, it’s important Labor Party’s landslide election victory in 1945. Marber, who to become more conscious.” originally wrote and directed his version for the BBC in 1995, She goes on: “Being the center of a lot of judgment and boiled it down to an 85-­minute duel between John, a valet and controversy while not feeling like a hurtful or controversial chauffeur to a rich politician, and (continued on page 130)

90 Get candid behind-the-scenes footage of the cover shoot and an exclusive interview with Sienna Miller at vogue.com. runover the pol’s daughter, Miss Julie. In 2003, energy from her.” The play is almost indescribably bi- When the play ends, we head back- it was staged for the first time, at the And in the end, it is her talent that zarre in the best possible way: intense, stage to Sarandon’s dressing room, and , a production that landed her the role of Miss Julie. Carna- funny, scary, sad. At intermission, the as soon as I see them together I get it: Miller saw twice with her then-­boyfriend han tells a story about the night during lights come up, and we both sit there in They are two peas in a pod. Sarandon Law, who was at the time working on the London run of when stunned amazement. And then decide has a kind of daffy sexuality (remember the film Closer, which was written by her costar Helen McCrory collapsed to head downstairs to the bar. Someone The Rocky Horror Picture Show?); she Marber (“Six Degrees of Jude Law,” from heat exhaustion during the mati- suddenly yells, “Sienna!” and a young, delights in being unconventional (not ev- jokes Carnahan). “I think they’re two nee in an un-­air-­conditioned theater handsome guy named Tao comes over eryone can claim to have filmed a lesbian people locked in a tragic relationship: and Miller had to go on in the part of and they embrace. (Turns out she met sex scene with Catherine Deneuve); she due to circumstance, due to politics, Rosalind—­having never done it even in him at Coachella last year. “He had this is a hippie at heart, dedicated to liberal due to class,” says Marber about the rehearsal. “I somehow got through it,” big, crazy painted bus, and we wound causes; and she was a late bloomer. She characters. “It’s a play about love and says Miller, “but it was the most terrify- up getting on and traveling back to did not become a household name until desire, and very, very crudely put, it’s ing experience. I don’t really remember L.A. with him,” she says.) How long are Bull Durham in 1988, nearly 20 years a play about a fuck. That’s the whole much about it. I lost ten years of my life you here for? he asks her. I’m leaving after she began working as an actor. point: two people who shouldn’t but in one night.” tomorrow, she says. And then he utters Within moments, they devolve into who do anyway, and the consequences “The producer Sonia Friedman was a line that Miller takes special delight shop talk, two film actresses comparing of that.” Because it is such a demanding there,” says Carnahan, “and she said in: “Every time I see you, you’re leaving notes about the horrors of doing a stage role, Miss Julie is usually played by a you were amazing—­unbelievable.” tomorrow.” play. “When I did a play in London, woman in her mid-30s.­ “To see some- When Carnahan reiterates that Miller It is fascinating to see her in the oh, the anxiety and hell I put myself one so young in this role is, I think, very is perfect for Miss Julie, Miller sounds company of a guy named Tao with a through!” says Miller. “I was a monster exciting,” says Marber. genuinely anguished. “But why?” painted bus, because Miller herself is a to be around.” It was Carnahan’s idea to cast Miller. “I don’t know!” he says. “Look. The bit of a throwback; she can very easily “I have been weeping,” says Saran- The Roundabout team, who are known woman has to be absolutely sexual and read as a kind of groovy hippie chick don. “I was so terrified. And then I was for their inventive casting, had been talk- comfortable with being sexual. I didn’t born in the wrong era. Directors obvi- like, terrified is when your plane is about ing about doing Strindberg’s Miss Julie know you, I just knew your work as an ously see this, too, what with Alfie and to crash into the World Trade Center. for years, and then one day the direc- actor; the filmsInterview and Factory . In fact, she will appear Terrified shouldn’t be a play. It’s all tor, Brokaw, said he’d love to direct the Girl, they are both that.” soon in ’s film Hippie ego. Get over it. And I’d kind of chant Marber version. “And hand to God,” “Yes?” says Miller. Hippie Shake as . . . a hippie! Earlier in myself down, and then I saw my name says Carnahan, “not just because you’re “And we need someone believably the day, I asked about her childhood in above the title and I lost it again. They sitting here, I said, ‘The perfect person beautiful and young and a good enough England. “It was always very loving and make it into such a big deal. I mean, I for this part is Sienna Miller.’ ” actor to pull this woman off. Patrick has open. I described my dad as a hippie made it into a big deal.” “I don’t know whether to be flattered taken the play and made it very English, once, which he’s not, but in his essence “You were amazing,” says Miller. “It’s or horrified,” says Miller. As she said to and it felt like it needed to be a genuinely he’s got a bohemian approach to life. absolutely obscure, but it’s stunningly me earlier about the part, “She’s kind British actress. I mean, I really didn’t It wasn’t like we were in a camper van amazing. The anxiety doesn’t come of detestable in a lot of ways. That’s even do a list. Usually when you start running around with flowers in our hair, across at all.” something I struggle with, something to do a play you do a list, and then you naked. But you could express any emo- “Geoffrey [Rush, Sarandon’s costar] I have to overcome. It’s tricky subject call the director and you go over it and tion; if you felt something, you could is so playful, and every time he screws up matter. She’s vulnerable, she’s messed you decide. But it really was, the per- say it; if you needed to talk, you could. something he just starts laughing. That’s up, she’s manipulative, she’s promiscu- fect person is Sienna Miller. And it all I think that nonjudgmental way of be- been a real lesson. Exit the Ego.” ous, she’s damaged—all­ of the things worked out.” ing raised maybe contributed to my free- They say their goodbyes, and we head I’m supposed to be, according to certain “Yaaaay!” she says and throws her ­spiritedness.” out the stage door and onto the street. journalists, so I don’t know whether I’m arms around him. While there’s no danger of that free- It’s a strangely sultry evening for early being really smart or really stupid.” “And here we are,” he says, looking ­spiritedness disappearing anytime soon, April, and Miller seems to revel in the She probably needn’t worry. Al- like the cat that ate the canary. it’s clear that Miller is growing and push- sight of all the theatergoers thronging though Miller has been typecast over Miller pipes up, “Everyone keeps ask- ing herself in new ways. Along with the around us. “It’s really like an amazing the years, playing one damaged, needy, ing me what I’m doing next, and I keep Hollywood blockbuster and Broadway dream,” she says, her face lit up by the or screwed-up­ girl after another, and it singing, ‘Broooooad-­waaaay!’ ” Pause. gambits, the newfound reflectiveness blazing wattage of the Great White Way. is hard for some people to separate the “And then I realize: There is no music about her love life and the therapy, “As an actress, you can pack it all in after actress from her roles, she is in fact, in and I kill myself at the end!” she has also started to reach out to the that. You’ve been on Broadway.” many ways, the opposite of troubled. world around her. She recently spent @ In person she’s sunny, hilarious, game After dinner, we head over to the Barry- seven days in the Congo on behalf of for anything, quick-witted­ (with an ac- more Theatre to see Susan Sarandon in International Medical Corps, a health cent for every occasion), and extremely . They met while they were and humanitarian organization that down-to-­ ­earth. As her friend Keira making Alfie in 2003 and have stayed in works in 25 countries. Her travel com- Knightley tells me, “I think she’s unique touch. “She had my back,” Miller says. panion, Margaret Aguirre, says, “She because she’s entirely herself. There isn’t “I was the new, young, naive I-­can’t- was absolutely astounding, not only as any pretext, she doesn’t pretend to be ­believe-­I’m-­in-­a-­film girl, and Susan was a human being and an empathetic and anything that she isn’t. And what she really good to me. I think she sees the compassionate and insightful person is is this amazing ball of energy. I love traps I get myself into and can laugh at but completely a trouper every step of being around her because you catch that them from afar. She’s proper cool.” the way.”

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