After taking a break between 2009 and 2012, Sienna Miller has quietly become one of the busiest actresses around over the course of the last few years. The British beauty was seen last year in Foxcatcher (2014) and opposite Bradley Cooper in the blockbuster hit American Sniper (also 2014), and has more than a few projects coming up: Burnt (which reunites her with Cooper), High Rise, Hippie Hippie Shake, The Lost City of Z (with Charlie Hunnam) and Ben Affleck’s Live By Night.
Right now you can catch her in Mississippi Grind, which stars Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn as Curtis and Gerry, two unlikely friends and gambling addicts on a road trip through the South. Miller plays Simone, a St. Louis call girl who is Curtis’ on-again, off-again girlfriend, and although she’s just in a few scenes, Miller -- almost unrecognizable in the role -- makes an impression that lasts for the entire film. We spoke with her about immersing herself in her roles, how she felt about her scenes in Black Mass (as Whitey Bulger’s girlfriend Catherine Greig) not making the final cut – and of course, her Ryan Reynolds foot rub scene.
Fandango: We were asking ourselves for awhile, “So, when is Sienna Miller going to be in this movie?” And then we said, “Oh, wait a minute. That’s her!” Tell us about making that complete transformation.
Sienna Miller: That’s so nice to hear. Thank you. I didn’t work for long on the film, but [codirectors/cowriters Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck] are both amazing writers and amazing filmmakers. It was pretty much there. It was fully formed. And being in the environment of Ben Mendelsohn, who is a complete genius, and Ryan, who was also pretty committed and a brilliant actor, it just worked. I’m never really good at analyzing how or why things happen, but it just felt like a focused environment. Therefore, I felt able to kind of bury myself a bit in her.
You’re not a redhead like this character is. Who makes the call when it comes to details like hair color and accents?
It depends on different filmmakers. I really like to look completely different and it’s something that I’m much more focused on than I used to be. It’s really physically transforming into things. I think it’s essential to disappear into characters and to become unrecognizable. You relinquish vanity and try and use all the tools accessible to you to be different.
She was written as a redhead, but they didn’t threaten to dye my hair. I did it actually without talking to them and turned up with red hair. And then I sat down with the makeup artist. You know, Simone is a lady of the night so we thought we could be quite generous with the makeup. The whole thing came together.
For her accent, I listened to a few tapes. I worked with Tim Monarch who is a dialect coach. I found a woman who had a voice who I thought was interesting and I built on it.
How would you describe the relationship between Curtis and Simone?
I think that they really understand each other. There’s an enormous amount of love. Deep down they both know who they really are and that it will be difficult for those people to settle. And, as a result, they sort of attempt to have something that’s traditional. But they ultimately know in their heart of hearts that it’s not going to work out. There’s something bittersweet about that kind of connection.
We love characters that come in for one scene or one sequence, but then their presence lingers throughout the film. I think that’s very much the case with Simone.
Thank you. Yeah, I like that, too. It’s also great being a mother and being able to pop in and be a part of something cool and not have to commit to a whole four-month shoot. I don’t think I could manage with the motherhood.
In that one scene where Ryan is giving you the foot massage, is he giving you a real foot massage and does he give a good one?
Yeah. He gave a great foot massage. That was a nice, easy bit, having your feet rubbed by Ryan Reynolds.
Where were your scenes shot?
We shot on locations in Louisiana. I think I worked maybe seven or eight days. It was a very quick scene. But yeah, just New Orleans, it’s always great to visit that place.
Are you a gambler? Enjoy going to casinos?
I do like a little blackjack. If I’m near a casino and other people are in the mood, I’ll go along. But it’s not something I do often. And I never leave when I’m up. That’s the problem. I’m not one of those people that can win and get out. I’m not a gambler.
What is your favorite city to visit here in the U.S.?
I’ve got a real love affair with New York. It’s like a bad boyfriend that I keep wanting to go back to. It’s sometimes amazing and it’s sometimes horrible. [Laughs] I was born there, so I think maybe that’s part of it. But there’s such a magic in that city. It’s a very open and embracing place. I think I might move there for a little bit.
We’ve been seeing a lot of you lately. Burnt is coming up in a couple of weeks. Can you talk a little bit about your role in it?
I play a chef called Helene, and Bradley Cooper’s the head chef of the restaurant. It was quite an intense shoot. I had to learn how to cook. And we were working in, basically, a large kitchen for two weeks on the proper stove. It’s a sort of dramatic, romantic study of a man, and it was great to work with Bradley again. We finished American Sniper and actually went straight onto that one, which I feel very fortunate to have been able to do, because he’s not only an exquisite actor but a great friend. So that was a great experience, too.
Did you not know how to cook before this?
No, I can cook, but I couldn’t cook to look like a professional chef. So I was taught how to filet fish and how to cook fish perfectly, which is a pretty hard thing to do, and how to move like a chef, and look like a chef, and work like a chef. It’s a very difficult thing to look like you belong in the kitchen and that you’ve spent your life in the kitchen. It’s the way you hold your equipment, the way you move. It took quite a lot of work.
What’s your best dish?
I make a very good Filipino chicken thing called Chicken Adobo. It’s delicious and it’s like comfort food. That’s probably my favorite thing. I’m English, so every Sunday I’ll make a roast for all my friends and have an open house. And then I cook like Tuscan farmhouse cooking, like pastas and lovely soups and things like that.
Were you disappointed that your scenes didn’t make it into Black Mass?
I’m glad you asked that. It’s been totally blown up in a way that’s insane, because I shot four days on that film. I had just done American Sniper, which was Warner Brothers, and they said, “Do you want to pop in and do a cameo and work with Johnny Depp for a couple of days?” it was actually only two days and then they added some scenes. It was going well and they wrote some new stuff. But it was always a cameo. It was always a part of the film that I felt was disposable, because when he met Catherine Greig, he stopped being a gangster so dramatically that his life just became less interesting.
It was a really fun thing: come in, work with Johnny Depp, and speak in a Boston accent for a couple of days. So it was a no-brainer, but not something I committed an enormous part of my life to. When you do a cameo, it’s totally to be expected and happens all the time. But for some reason, when it happens with me it becomes like a media s**tstorm that no one really cares about probably. So, no, not a big deal. Totally fine in that situation to expect that it might not make it. But I would still have gone back and done it again because I had a really fun couple of days.
Mississippi Grind is now in theaters.
