Sienna Miller has opened up about fame, motherhood, acting and fashion while promoting War, Sky’s new legal drama in which she plays a glamorous film star caught in a bitter divorce.
The 44-year-old actor says the role has echoes of her own experiences in the public eye, but also reflects how much her approach to her career has changed. After years of playing supporting roles and navigating intense media scrutiny, Miller says she is ready to take herself more seriously.
A role with echoes of real life
In War, Miller plays Carla Duval, an internationally famous movie star whose divorce from technology entrepreneur Morgan Henderson, played by Dominic West, turns into a battle over money, property, art and custody.
Carla also faces an affair and relentless paparazzi attention — elements that inevitably recall parts of Miller’s own past.
Miller became a tabloid fixture in her twenties during her relationship with actor Jude Law. She later fought against intrusive paparazzi coverage and became a prominent figure in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal.
She secured an injunction against a photo agency in 2008 and later received £100,000 in damages from the News of the World after the newspaper admitted publishing material obtained through voicemail hacking and engaging in harassment.
“It was not a sustainable existence,” Miller said, recalling a time when photographers could gather outside her home every day.
She believes social media has since transformed the celebrity landscape, making the paparazzi culture of that period seem almost unimaginable.
Filming while pregnant
Miller filmed War while pregnant with her third child, although the production managed to conceal her pregnancy on screen. She described the schedule as demanding, with long days that often began and ended in darkness.
Her co-stars included Phoebe Fox and James McArdle, who play Carla’s lawyers. Fox was also pregnant during filming, although her pregnancy was incorporated into the storyline.
Miller says motherhood has changed her priorities without diminishing her commitment to acting.
She has three children, including 14-year-old Marlowe, and welcomed her youngest child with actor Oli Green in 2024.
“I want to take myself more seriously”
Miller admits she has sometimes underestimated her own career and allowed others to do the same.
“I absolutely want to take myself more seriously,” she said, describing it as something she has been thinking about intensely.
She believes part of the problem comes from making jokes about herself before others have the opportunity to judge her. Hollywood, she adds, often rewards people who project confidence and seriousness.
“I’m so bored of my gratitude,” she said. “I do think it’s time to shed that.”
Miller initially struggled to establish herself as an actor because she became famous before audiences had seen much of her work. Her early public image was closely tied to her relationships, particularly her high-profile romance with Jude Law.
Her breakthrough came with her portrayal of Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl in 2006. She later appeared in Oscar-nominated films including Foxcatcher and American Sniper, gradually building a reputation as a serious actor.
She also received strong reviews for her lead performance in American Woman, although the film attracted little attention at the box office.
Fashion offers a different kind of confidence
Miller’s talents extend beyond acting. A prominent fashion figure since the 2000s, she helped popularise the “boho chic” look and enjoyed major success with her Marks & Spencer collaborations in 2024.
She is now preparing another collection with a major British brand and says designing brings out a more decisive and confident side of her personality.
“In that environment, I can be the person that I can’t be in my film environment,” she said. “I’m very decisive. I don’t procrastinate.”
Miller believes the difference may be that fashion feels less personal than acting.
“Design is somehow removed from myself – I think that might be why,” she said. “I kind of short-circuit when it comes to acting.”
She says she particularly enjoyed playing Carla in War because the character allowed her to embrace being narcissistic and unlikeable.
“The amount of energy you save, taking your thermometer out of everybody’s arse in the room the entire time – it’s just fantastic,” she joked.
A life that was never going to be ordinary
Miller describes herself as a late bloomer, joking that her thirties felt like her twenties and that her forties are now becoming her thirties.
She lives in London with Green and their children, while maintaining a close relationship with her former partner Tom Sturridge, the father of Marlowe. The wider family has also grown close, with the different sides of the family even spending Christmas together.
Looking back at her unconventional career, intense media attention and journey into motherhood, Miller says she has come to accept that an ordinary life was probably never in the cards.
“It’s a very schizophrenic life,” she said. “But maybe I was never going to have a normal one.”
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