| By Fred Topel
In Theaters December 25
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It takes a lot to get the legendary lover Casanova to settle down. In the new movie starring Heath Ledger as the Italian Don Juan, Sienna Miller plays the woman that wins his heart. Somewhat out of place in 18the century Italy, Miller’s character infiltrates the male scientific community and proves her worth in a sexist culture. How could Casanova resist such a spunky chick?
“I think as a young actress, it’s very rare that you read something where you’re not either ‘the girl’ or there to serve some romantic purpose in a male dominated cast,” Miller said. “I was 22-21 when I read it and saw this heroine who was intelligent, feminist, cross dressing, swashbuckling, just generally a fantastic role. So I begged for it.”
Ledger is on a roll with Brokeback Mountain leading Oscar talks. As the male lead in her fair and balanced love story, Miller found him to be humble and fair. “It was fantastic. A lot of male actors would have come in playing the greatest lover of all time and had an enormous ego and pouted and puffed their way through it. Heath being the man that he is and the actor that he is really sat back and allowed it to be an ensemble piece which I think is really rare. He was great. He really took care of me. He’s kind of like my big brother and we had a right giggle on the set. We both don’t take life too seriously and he’s just generous and kind. I think he knew that I was nervous, that it was my first big role in a huge film and he really helped me out.”
Miller took the feminist themes in the film seriously. “I read a lot about Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragettes, looked at societies where women feel very repressed, Bagdhad and all of that, just tried to feel that because I don’t' feel too [subjugated]. Well, I do at times. And I read a book called The Venetian Love Story which is set around the same period that we were concentrating on. I had Casanova’s memoirs and I dabbled in the Venice years, the Venetian years. Those kinds of things, more focusing on women. I watched Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown a lot, just women who are strong. There was a lot to be done, art.”
In her own life, Miller finds her own sense of empowerment. Though the media portrayed her in respect to her famous ex Jude Law, Miller lives her own life. “I think being able to hold your own in an intellectual conversation, feeling like you don’t need a man to complete you, just feeling independent I suppose [is] the same thing that empowers everyone. Just feeling good within yourself is empowering.”
With specific regard to that media interest in her personal life, Miller just tunes it out. “Yeah, that’s an element, an aspect of my life that I’m not completely content with but I can’t winge about it anymore than I have otherwise people will shoot me. I just surround myself with my friends and family. I have the same group of friends I’ve had since I was three. I do very normal things. I have dogs, I cook. I don’t lead a particularly exciting life away from work. I don’t go to celebrity parties. I don’t really court that. I accept that it’s a part of my life. I hope that it will be less prevalent than it has been this year. But I’m content, I’m happy so I feel strong.”
With supporting roles in Alfie and Layer Cake, Miller would have burst onto the scene regardless of who she was dating. Now that she’s commanding choice roles in hot projects, Miller is being careful not to fall into any typical career path.
“I don’t really have a strategy or a game plan. I think as soon as I did, everything would fail. I’d love to do supporting roles and leading roles. Any kind of role with a good character. I don’t mind if it was tiny or huge, just to do good work and to grow and to get better. To work with great people. I have a list of a few people in my head that I would love to work with. Michel Gondry I’d love to work with. Cate Blanchett I think is extraordinary. Thinking people I could learn from, Sean Penn and Robin Wright-Penn I love. Who else? Lots of people. Ang Lee I think is a great director. I know I’m missing people.”
To Miller, it’s not about being a glamorous movie star, although she probably won’t be able to help that. “I just love what I do but I think because I’m fascinated by people more than celebrity or being treated or pampered. That makes me very uncomfortable. I like studying people, finding interesting people because I think you grow as a person and also understand people better and it’s more of a sociological study, what I do. I just did a play for five months, Shakespeare in the West End. It’s about experiences and traveling and people. I don’t really just want to be ‘the girl.’”
The acting bug has always been in Miller’s system, even before she was born. “I did always want to be an actress, yeah. I don’t' know why. I don’t really remember why. My mother went into labor during The Nutcracker Suite so I think it was kind of supposed to be this way. I was brought up in a very creative environment. It was actors, it was quite bohemian and there were always people in the house and I used to go to the theater from a very early age and see people dress up in fun clothes running around with swords and pretty dresses. They were professional players and I just thought that that would be the funnest job. And I trained at Lee Strasburg here.”
While she’s not a method actor, that training still provided useful tools. “It’s more therapy but what it does give you is confidence, or just a point of reference if you need to go somewhere. I don’t really use it that much but I know that somewhere there’s a layer of something that I learned there.”
Cassanova opens Christmas Day. |
