Sienna Miller, the actress who had to recreate her most painful personal drama in fiction

In the Anatomy of a Scandal series, the plot revolves around the privileged life of Sophie, the wife of James, a powerful British politician. One night everything changes for her and her family when a big scandal comes to light that has her partner as the protagonist. Everything from an infidelity that begins a drama that will grow chapter by chapter.

Who brings Sophie to life is Sienna Miller. And it seems like a joke of fate... The reason? The common points that exist between the problems that the woman will face in fiction, the central conflict, and the one that the actress had to face in her real life, long ago. As if the show's creators, David Kelley and Melissa James Gibson, had written it with Sienna in mind.

Sophie learns that James has been having an affair with a co-worker. This circumstance seemed more than familiar to Sienna as soon as she was given the script, two years ago. When she presented the project in society, she told the press that her story caught her in such a way that she read the script in just two days. Each finished page she took her to read another one. It was like they were picking at an old scar.

Sienna Miller was born on December 28, 1981, in New York, United States. When she was 18 months old, her parents moved to London, England, where she spent much of her life. When she was six years old her parents separated, and she and her older sister, Savanna, stayed with her mother, former model Jo Miller. They continued in London, but changed neighborhoods. Those were dramatic times: Jo went through breast cancer, having two little girls who she took care of.

Sienna's life continued there until at age 18 she decided to return to her hometown to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute of Theater and Film. Meanwhile, she followed in her mother's footsteps as a model. She was the visible face of several globally recognized brands. That would be her cover letter in the middle and a way to earn money while she pursued her true dream.

Her film debut came a few years later, in 2001, when she was summoned to South Kensington. She continued to participate in different projects until in 2004 the planets seemed to align. On the one hand, she was the protagonist of Layer Cake, and months later she had an important role in the film Alfie. We will stop here to add an important piece of information, which will support the rest of the text: while filming this film, she met actor Jude Law.

It is said that it was love at first sight and the steps they took gave credit to those versions. Just a few months later, at Christmas of that year, they got engaged. However, in the middle of the following year everything would collapse. It was when Jude confessed to Sienna – and then, the parallel with Anatomy of a Scandal – that he had an affair with Daisy, the nanny of the three children he had had with her previous partner, Sadie Frost.

Months before all this, Sienna suffered an unpleasant situation with the producer Harvey Weinstein (later sentenced to 23 years in prison for two sexual abuse). In an interview with The Guardian, she maintained that on one occasion she had to stop him in his attempt to harass her, and that later she had a lot to do with Law, at that time still her boyfriend. “Probably there I found protection. Jude was a great actor for Harvey,” she commented.

The infidelity case came to light while Miller was in London starring in William Shakespeare's play As You Like It. "With that level of public anguish, having to get out of bed and stand in front of 800 people every night is the last thing you want to do," the actress recalled in an interview with The Daily Beast.

At that moment, after confessing it to his wife and after it was leaked to the press as a true scandal, Jude came out to apologize publicly. Some of this also happens in the series. To the point that when Sienna talked about certain situations that Sophie has to face, she remarked: “I have a kind of muscle memory about a lot of her experiences. So she was pretty open."

One of the central points in this parallelism is when Sophie finds out about her husband's infidelity. "The feeling that something is about to come out, that you have absolutely no control over, is a distressing situation." The subject that mixes reality and fiction was referred to by Sarah Vaughan, who wrote the book on which the series is based. Vaughan revealed that at that moment the actress's heart could be heard beating very loudly through the microphones.

Asked about this appreciation, which was not overlooked, Sienna replied: "Right now, at 40, I have had experiences that I internalized and can use, betrayal and frustration, because of how much I accepted and did not reject, and the low self-esteem that I had”.

In 2009 Sienna and Law rebuilt their relationship. But it was only the beginning of the end. Nothing would ever be the same again. Something had broken and, although they tried, they could not repair the couple. A year later they would distance themselves forever.

Miller had found out about the infidelity from one of Law's sons, who, from the naivety of his age, told him that he had opened the bedroom door and found his father with his babysitter. From this infidelity, the actress continued to investigate, the child provided more details, and the actor could only admit the affair.

Last year, and after all the water that ran under the bridge, Sienna was able to talk about one of the saddest periods of her life. The first thing she underlined is that she erased that stage of her life: “There are six whole weeks of that experience that I don't remember. I have no recollection."

“I was so shocked by all of this. And she was really just getting started. She was only 23 years old. But if you get past that, you feel like you can get past anything. It was very hard. There was so much noise that it was difficult to think clearly and concentrate on my work, which I always took very seriously. She ate everything else. I look back and wonder how I got over it. But I did it, ”she recalled in the chat with The Daily Beast.

Sienna rebuilt her love life with Tom Sturridge, who is the father of her daughter Marlowe, now 10 years old. In 2012 they got engaged, but four years later they broke up. She is currently in a relationship with the actor Oli Green, 25 years old. At the beginning of this year, the first photos of different events that they attended together appeared, no longer hiding. A new stage for this talented interpreter who went through everything, but she always managed to come out on top. Even when fiction insists on removing real wounds.

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The common points that exist between the problems that the woman will face in fiction, the central conflict, and the one that the actress had to face in her real life, long ago.