Is this just a kiss off?
IT’S hard to tell whether Sienna Miller is on the level.
The lithe and lovely blue-eyed actress is known for being unprogrammed in interviews (occasionally to her lasting regret), and you thought you were tossing a pretty soft question: Did she see any of herself in the role she plays in Steve Buscemi’s new film, “Interview,” an intellectual boxing match between a frustrated war reporter who resents his fluffy assignment and the starlet he is sent to profile? In the film’s opening, the disgusted reporter muses to his brother that he is about to interview an actress who is most famous for her changing breast size and bed mates.
“I am really not that character,” said a rather indignant Miller, a complete unknown who became a tabloid staple after falling into a doomed love affair with her “Alfie” costar Jude Law in 2004. “And you are not going to get me to say I am.”
OK, then, changing subjects, how about the famous Sundance swag-athon? Had a chance to indulge yet?
“It’s a little overwhelming,” she said, sitting in a cafe on Main Street that’s been turned into a makeshift interview space. “And it makes you feel guilty. I did get given some stuff that I didn’t ask for necessarily ... then I found out that you can actually give it to this company that auctions it on EBay and gives the money for charity.”
So here, according to staffers at the various swag suites, are the things that may be popping up on the online auction site, courtesy of Ms. Miller: From the Fred Segal boutique, $300 in Le Mystere Lingerie panties, which they said Miller took after telling them she’d forgotten to pack her “knickers”; $200 boots by Earth shoes; a $400 Portolano brown cashmere shawl; and a $450 Linea Pelle handbag. From the Kari Feinstein Style Lounge, a $1,200 Melrose Mac laptop, which staffers said Miller was “very excited” to take. From the Jessica Meisels Marquee Lounge, $8,000 of Lia Sophia jewelry, an $800 Botkier bag and $900 in Dermalogica skin care products, which she was delighted to receive, according to those present, because she’s been traveling for a month and has run out of “everything.”
But you know what? This year’s Sundance theme is “Focus on Film” -- you see people sporting little buttons with that slogan all over town -- and though she could be distracted by all the freebies being hurled at her (and her publicist insists they were hurled), Miller, who turned 25 in December, is quite serious about her work.
She slipped easily into a conversation about “Interview,” a remake of Dutch director Theo van Gogh’s 2003 film by the same name. (The 47-year-old Van Gogh, who was murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004, had intended to remake the film with American actors, said Buscemi, who both directs and costars in “Interview.”)
Creative decisions
The film, which premiered here last week, is an intense exploration of the bizarre relationship between a loser-ish journalist and his famous, beautiful subject that buds, blossoms and dies in the course of an evening. They are by turns self-revealing and sadistic -- each trying to get the upper hand in a power struggle that only one will win. “The basic premise,” said Buscemi, “is these are two people who are more alike than not, but really butt heads. Something is keeping him there, and something about her enjoys that aspect -- the cat playing with the mouse.”
Van Gogh and screenwriter Theodor Holman created the movie for a real-life Dutch soap opera star, Katja Schuurman, who has a bit part in this version. Holman and Schuurman, along with many of the Dutch crew who also worked on the American film, were here for the premiere.
For Miller, the process of shooting 30 pages of script over nine nights in takes that lasted as long as 10 minutes was a dream. Three hand-held cameras gave the actors freedom to roam and not worry about hitting marks, Buscemi said. Plus, said Miller, “we shot it in sequence, which for an actress is a rare thing, and great.”
Also, she said, “there wasn’t a studio breathing down our neck, saying, ‘I don’t like her hair, don’t like the way she looks.’ We got to make our own creative decisions.”
Buscemi drew chuckles at the film’s Sundance premiere when he said that he didn’t really know who Miller was before someone recommended her for the part. His lack of familiarity with her work, said Miller, did not surprise her. “I had only done three films” -- “Layer Cake,” “Casanova” and “Alfie” -- “and they weren’t commercially successful.”
And you know what? She doesn’t care.
“It’s not my money,” she said. Then paused. Then backtracked. “That was a terrible thing to say. Of course I care, and it would be lovely to be in a film that people responded to and made a lot of money. Completely shooting myself in the foot. Again. But at the end of the day for me, it’s about the creative experience, and I had a good time making those films.”
With starring roles in “Interview,” George Hickenlooper’s “Factory Girl,” in which she plays the doomed heiress and Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick, the adaptation of Michael Chabon’s novel “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” and the twisted honeymoon comedy “Camille,” it does seem that Miller is emerging from the shadows of her personal life and establishing herself as a serious actress. Certainly, she admits, the task would have been easier without all the attention on her romantic travails in the last couple of years.
“I think your job as an actress is to convince an audience that you are the character you are playing,” she said. “So, obviously, the less people know about your personal life and who you are as a person, the easier it is for you to be a blank canvas for the character to be on. Which is why people like De Niro and Nicholson never really did interviews, never really wanted to reveal too much of themselves.”
Still, Miller has not shied away from the press. She is a frequent subject in fashion magazines, which have relentlessly promoted her eclectic wardrobe as just-the-right-look-for-now. (Yet, when asked about her love of fashion, without knowing it’s a prelude to a question about the well-publicized fashion line she and her sister, Savannah, will launch in July, she recoiled, moaning, “But I thought we were going to talk about the work.”)
Right. (She would, however, pause for a moment to evaluate the much-discussed Heidi-style braid she wore to the Golden Globes: “My challah! It was a challah! I think people hated it, but I felt kind of ethereal and pretty.”)
She has dutifully promoted “Factory Girl” all over the place. The movie, which at Harvey Weinstein’s insistence was given an early limited release so she could be eligible for a best actress Oscar nomination (which she did not get), will be released more broadly next Friday. Just this month, Miller appears on the cover of Esquire, in a spread that reveals just enough, but not too much, of herself. The headline, which she suggested herself, is “Girl on Fire.” (To be fair, it’s the title of a new book about Sedgwick and also a reference to the fact that she burned herself with her cigarette during the interview.) She is also the subject of a longish profile this month in the fashion-driven W, which, as you can imagine, adores her.
‘Go home, Sienna!’
But she has periodically singed herself, as she readily admits. Last summer, while shooting “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” she provoked a local storm when, in an interview with a New York reporter, she referred to the Pennsylvania city with an epithet. “I genuinely never tried deliberately to hurt anyone, and I felt like I really, really upset people. People were sending me hate mail and shouting outside the hotel, ‘Go home, Sienna!’ I thought, God, what have I done?”
Miller met with the mayor on TV to apologize to the wounded populace. “The funny thing was, they had to say what I said without using the word. So they said, ‘She used a profanity, it rhymes with “pit,” it starts with an “s” and ends in “burg.” ’ “
The irony for Miller, who claimed to have been taken out of context while simply describing her own mood, not the town, is that her father, Ed Miller, is a Pennsylvania native. Ed Miller, a former investment-banker-turned-life coach who lives on St. Thomas, grew up in Meadville, north of Pittsburgh. His daughter, who was born in New York and grew up in London, holds dual citizenship.
“I do have foot-in-mouth disease, obviously,” she said.
And despite the display of slight touchiness, she has a sense of humor about her persona.
Recently, she has become a favorite target of the popular blogger Perez Hilton, who, in his inimitably puerile style, has given her the nickname “Sluttyienna.” Miller, who said she thinks Hilton is funny, met him at the Golden Globes. “My agent introduced us. I just said, ‘Hi, I am not slutty.’ ” (Hilton, who chronicles Miller’s dating life with the intensity of a political reporter covering a campaign, reported a similar chat on his blog.) When they met up in a Sundance swag suite the other day, she happily posed for a photo with her arms resting on his shoulder. No hard feelings.
“There are millions of people out there, and they are entitled to write what they want,” she said, sounding sincere. “I’d rather that than you’re banned by the state from having an opinion.”
