Sienna Miller on the love of her life, and overcoming the burden of beauty in Hollywood

IT’S hard to be taken seriously in Hollywood when you’re as beautiful as Sienna Miller. But at 33 the actress is finally hitting her stride.

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 28: Actress Sienna Miller attends the "Burnt" European premiere at the Vue West End on October 28, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

IT’S easy to bring Sienna Miller to tears.

The movie star, reformed party girl and perennial fixture at high-glam fashion shows gets emotional almost immediately at any mention of her three-year-old daughter, Marlowe.

“I well up every time I talk about her. It’s a funny thing being a mother. It’s the biggest joy anyone can experience. It’s like being in love every single day and that love seems to be growing,” she gushes to news.com.au.

“It’s an incredible bond. It’s taught me to understand aspects of myself, the negative and the positive. It’s opened up this door to a whole level of analysis, not selfishly, but about the world and my own experience in it. You become on every level more conscious. For me, that’s a positive thing.”

For all this abundance of joy, Miller’s personal life has been fraught with emotional upheaval. She’s newly single after a four-year relationship with Marlow’s father and her former fiance, actor Tom Sturridge (Far from the Madding Crowd). Miller also endured a tumultuous relationship with her previous fiance Jude Law (they were together from 2003 to 2006, and again from 2009 to 2011).

Sienna Miller recently separated with the father of her child, English actor Tom Sturridge. Picture: David M. Benett/Getty Images

During her time with Law she was publicly humiliated when he admitted to an affair with the nanny of his three children with former wife, Sadie Frost.

It was the on-again off-again relationship the media couldn’t get enough of. Sienna Miller pictured with Jude Law in 2004. Picture: Steve Finn/Getty Images

Miller has also been romantically linked to Daniel Craig, Hayden Christensen, Matthew Rhys, Rhys Ifans, model Jamie Burke, and had an affair with married man and father of four, Balthazar Getty.

She says of relationships, “I think that communication is probably the most important thing. It’s a hard thing to sustain, the ability to communicate, but that’s where the source for a happy relationship really lies.” By all accounts, Miller maintains a good relationship with Sturridge, probably for the sake of Marlowe.

Interestingly, now that she is 33 and no longer the ingenue, her career has never been hotter. While she was often dismissed as eye candy for most of her professional life in movies such as Alfie and GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra, she has won acclaim of late with her move towards more dramatic, de-glammed performances in serious films, most notably in last year’s dramas, Foxcatcher and American Sniper. Still, there’s a hint of irritation in her voice when she says, “I don’t think being attached to looking glamorous has ever been a consideration to me.” She pauses. “You know, it took me a while to be seen as a serious actress.”

Sienna Miller, who at 33 is finally being given more serious roles. Picture: Andrew Toth/Getty Images

Though her latest film Burnt — which reunited her with on-screen husband from Sniper Bradley Cooper — was deemed a critical and commercial misfire, Miller’s upcoming projects look promising. She will follow The Lost City of Z opposite Robert Pattinson with Live by Night directed by and starring Ben Affleck.

Like most new parents, though, she is happiest talking about her child, literally lighting up at any mention of Marlowe. How does her daughter take after her famous mum?

“She’s pretty independent, she’s strong, and we have the same sense of humour which is probably the most enjoyable part of it. It’s ridiculous but we’re just kind of complicit in it. I can’t define it in any coherent way but I do feel like we understand each other. She’s this magical little creature and as connected to her as I feel, it’s so abstract for me to understand that I made that. Some people look at their kids and they see themselves. I just sit there in wonder. I can’t quite connect the dots as to how that happened.” She smiles.

“I find it really wonderfully baffling.”

Although Miller attended a boarding school herself, she is insistent that won’t be an option for Marlowe. “I don’t think I could. I was eight years old when I went to boarding school. For me, looking back, that was too young. It was really hard but you adapt. I feel that I have a really deep understanding of every different type of woman and I have close female friends because we raised each other to a certain degree and went through every formative change together.”

Her experience clearly helped her navigate the often duplicitous waters of Hollywood. “I definitely found a kind of resilience and a lot of strength from that. It isn’t that I have cruel parents, it was culturally what a lot of people do,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

“But I want my baby with me.”

Sienna Miller at the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards in London on November 3, 2015. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Sienna Miller at the "Burnt" European premiere on October 28, 2015. Picture: Anthony Harvey/Getty Images

Originally published as Sienna Miller on the love of her life, and overcoming the burden of beauty in Hollywood