Sienna Miller on Broadway Critics, Jude Law and Her Triumphant Star Turn in London's Flare Path

Sienna Miller is in high spirits as she arrives late one afternoon at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, her pooch Porgy happily in tow. (The newly groomed dog was sporting a green hair bow.) The 29-year-old actress is starring in arguably the single best-reviewed West End play of the year so far, Flare Path, Terence Rattigan’s 1942 drama set in a regional English hotel near a Royal Air Force base during World War II; Sheridan Smith (Legally Blonde) and James Purefoy (Rome) co-star. In Miller’s third professional stage venture to date (she made her Broadway debut in After Miss Julie in the fall of 2009) director Trevor Nunn’s revival confirms the actress as a genuine talent in her own right, not just the consort of various famous men, former fiancé Jude Law included. In a wide-ranging conversation, at once friendly and exuberant, Miller talked about life, art, the paparazzi and a whole lot more.

It’s wonderful to find you on the West End and in such a top-drawer production. How did this come about?
Trevor [Nunn] sent me the script. I read it and thought, on paper it’s a perfectly made play, but I just didn’t get it. Then Trevor and I went out for coffee and he said, “No, it’s Chekhov, actually; you have to look more deeply”—meaning that there are characters in the play who you know immediately, and they’re lovable and brave and fully formed, and then there are characters like mine [London actress Patricia Graham] who begin as something and end as something else. That transformation involves winning the audience round. Patricia isn't as overtly lovable as a lot of the others, and one of my flaws is that I struggle with not being liked!

You and James Purefoy both play actors, in his case a Brit who has made it in Hollywood and returned home to rekindle a love affair with you. Does that make it easier to perform?
Not at all—well, perhaps James thinks so, but I don’t. I know tons of actors and I have no idea what they’re about, and vice-versa. I think that’s true of any profession. What is true is you understand the camaraderie between Patricia and Peter and their history and their sense of fun, and she doesn’t have that with Teddy [her bomber pilot husband of a year]. I think the tragedy for Patricia is that she is torn between two men and both are flawed. In the end, she chooses the greater good, which I think she will make work. Sometimes you have to do the right thing—and that’s a situation that does resonate with certain women.

Your commitment to the theater seems to be growing, from your West End debut six years ago in As You Like It to After Miss Julie on Broadway and now this.
I don’t think it was ever not there, though maybe I was nervous of it. And, you know, it’s a funny thing when you’re a young actress and you have all these cooks in the kitchen advising left, right, and center, and there are conflicts of interest between the Hollywood lot and the London lot. It’s very easy to get waylaid and swept up. But I actually think I figured out within the last year the kind of actor I want to be and the kind of roles I want to do and why I do it. Before, I found myself chasing things I didn’t particularly want to do, and that is a really interesting thing to step back and look at.

Presumably that’s just a consequence of getting older?
I guess so, and trial and error, and being in your 20s and being, you know, a spontaneous person; it was all very flippant. Even now I was supposed to go off and do a film, and there I was instead working with Trevor—an experience that felt like going to Cambridge [University] with Trevor Nunn, which is something I’d pay a fortune to do!

So, how do you decide to commit to a play?
In this case, it was definitely driven by Trevor, who had been to see both my other plays. With Miss Julie, I hadn’t seen [director] Mark Brokaw’s work, so it was more the role and Patrick [Marber, the playwright], whom I had met when my ex [Jude Law] had done [the film of] Closer. With the Shakespeare, I knew [director] David Lan, again through my ex, and we had become great friends. He approached me with the idea of doing Celia, and then I worked with [co-star] Helen [McCrory] on the film of Casanova. But as far as As You Like It goes, it really was about being spontaneous and not giving things a lot of thought. I was just sucking up life experience: Shakespeare! West End! Woo-hoo! [Laughs.]

You mention your ex, who was two streets over in New York playing Hamlet while you were playing Miss Julie; your pal Daniel Craig was on Broadway at the same time, too, in A Steady Rain.
Yes, but I was going to Broadway before [Jude’s] Hamlet was ever set to transfer, so it’s not as if I followed him there [laughs]. Or Daniel, who I think is amazing. I guess it’s a small world, the theater, but it was purely coincidence, though the experience was also wonderful and magical for all those reasons.

Would you say that Broadway can be a lot more ruthless than the London theater scene?
Yes, and you know how naked New York audiences can be: I’d be up there hearing, “Oh my God, that’s disgusting!” from out front, or words to that effect. I did make the mistake of reading one review and I nearly…it just destroyed me. To this day, with that role, I still wake up thinking, “That’s how I should have done it.” I had made the mistake of trying to make her vulnerable and likable, and Patrick came in and cut all the lines of self-explanation, so I was just naked and detestable. [Laughs.] At the same time, I genuinely loved every minute of it. How could I not? It’s one of those roles that is truly bottomless.

Has Jude been to see you in Flare Path?
No, he’s been away.

But I see he’s coming to the Donmar this summer to do Anna Christie, which seems an interesting choice, physically, for a role associated with Liam Neeson.
That’s where [Liam] met Natasha Richardson, right? Jude will buff up for the part, I’m sure of that; I think he’s really going to go for it.

It’s intriguing that you mention Closer. You’d be great for Anna, the role Richardson played on Broadway in 1999.
I’d love to play Anna! I actually feel as if all these roles are slipping away. I said to Trevor the other day, “How old is too old to play Juliet?” He was like, “Darling, you’d be wonderful as Portia,” but I actually think the Juliet ship has sailed.

You were born in New York but have yet to play an American on stage…
…or to do a show that hasn’t been set in the ’40s. Even our As You Like It! I never resonated with that era before, but now I’ve got the eyeliner down [laughs]. Mark [Brokaw] asked me about doing Maggie the Cat in Dublin, but I thought, isn’t that too predictable? So I did this instead. I mean, one day, of course, Blanche [in A Streetcar Named Desire], but I feel as if maybe I’m too ambitious; I don’t know if I’ve got the chops. I’ve never done a play where I’m not essentially using my own voice, and I actually find an accent a lot easier to hide behind. I also want to play someone who chews with their mouth open; anyone with terrible table manners is next on my list! [Laughs.]

There has been talk of bringing Flare Path to Broadway.
I know that we’ve had some big people in, like Harvey [Weinstein]. Listen, I’d be there in a heartbeat: The best thing, actually, is how much people enjoy it. There’s something to be said for that symbiotic relationship with an audience where, at the end, people are sniffling and moved and they’ve been taken on a journey that’s complete.

Speaking of feeling complete, you must be pleased to be talked about as a proper actress, not just in terms of whom you’re dating.
And when you see the amount of people I’ve been linked to—hordes of people who I’d barely kissed or even met, and it’s just not true. Sometimes I think, “What do you have to bloody do?” You know? I’ve been nominated for a BAFTA and a Critics’ Circle Award and I’ve appeared on Broadway. I have achieved things within my industry at the age of 29 that I am incredibly proud of. Sorry, I get on a rant; I just find it so unbelievable.

At least your successful injunction against the UK paparazzi gives you room to breathe and have a life.
Yes, in that sense I do feel as if I have the space to be a human being and not an object of their predatory behavior. And to be honest, I’m not so concerned with it anymore; I’m not really bothered. You know, I’m doing a play with Trevor Nunn, which is a dream come true. It’s so wonderful to do a part, and a play, that people actually enjoy. I don’t want this to end.