Sienna Miller Makes Mark On Big Screen
A lot of fans think of actress Sienna Miller as a fashion icon and party girl, but that could be changing.
She's drawing raves for playing pop art icon Edie Sedgwick, the 1960s creative inspiration for Andy Warhol, in the new movie "Factory Girl."
Miller admitted to co-anchor Hannah Storm on The Early Show Friday that it's "definitely" gratifying to get glowing reviews instead of attention for stories in tabloids.
"A lot of that (tabloid material) is very much invented," she told Storm. "For some reason, you become a target for a certain amount of attention or a certain type of attention, and it's very hard to shake, regardless of whether it's true or not.
"The work has always been really a prime focus, and so it's very exciting."
Storm pointed to two articles written on the same date about Miller. One said she has no desire to find a new man, and just wanted to redecorate her house, and the other said she's ready to fall in love again.
"Well, you see, that's the tabloids!" Miller marveled. "It's absolutely not true. Neither of those — I would never say any of those things. I have brought a new house, so that's the kind of the focus, is probably what I would have said, and they would have manipulated it to make it sound like I was talking about men, which they do. … It's very creative of them."
"Factory Girl" takes place in 1960s. Sedgwick, portrayed by Miller, was dubbed "The It Girl" by some and "The Poor Little Rich Girl by others. Sedgwick meets Andy Warhol, the toast of the pop art world, who had surrounded himself with very eclectic people at a place he called "The Factory."
To see photos from the debut of "Factory Girl," click here.
What drew Edie into his world?
"I think," Miller responded, "he had this charisma and this magnetism, and she was looking for any escape. She'd come from quite a dysfunctional family and had had this abuse when she younger. She'd suffered abuse and had been in and out of mental institutions, so I feel like he was just an escape. It was just kind of fantasy that he created, with a lot of degenerate … people. And she just fit in. I mean, she was pretty wild, and pretty — and I think she existed on a different plane."
Miller said she thinks Sedgwick was "really undefinable. … It's very hard to figure out what she was, because she was really multifaceted, very layered. She was, in one sense, this kind of iconic, outgoing performance artist and another was this tragic, vulnerable, frail little girl. So, it's a combination of both of those things that made this impact.
"It's amazing, really, that with such a small period of time in the public eye, that she's still affecting our generation. … There's something intangible and amazing about her."
Miller said she was very invested in the role, telling Storm she "researched it for about a year, so you have all this information, read everything, and you study one's movements, and suddenly they say, 'It's a wrap,' and you're like, 'What do I — oh, all right!' So, you know, it took a while to get my dancing back, and her's is much better than mine, anyway, so I steal a little of that. It takes a process of unwinding, with any film but, yeah, it was a little tricky."
