Sienna Miller has posted exactly once on Instagram, back in 2017, but somehow she still amassed more than 873,000 followers. Such is the public’s fascination with everything this English-American actress does, says, and wears. In the 2012 film The Girl, she captured the appeal of Tippi Hedren; in Ben Affleck’s period drama Live by Night (2016), she played a gangster’s mistress; and now the decidedly downtown New Yorker appears as the privileged wife of a badly behaving politician in the new Netflix drama Anatomy of a Scandal. Here, Miller shares her key components to the good life. —Ashley Baker
Airline: The Singapore Airlines suite was about as decadent as it’s been. Certainly the last time I actually didn’t want to get off the plane.
Airport: They have good Tex-Mex in Houston.
Alibi: “I was with Tori!”
App: Shazam.
Bedtime: Well, Hemingway once said, “We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together, with the windows open and the stars bright.” That sounds pretty perfect to me.
Bike: Steve McQueen’s from The Great Escape.
Boyfriend/girlfriend: Is there such a thing?
Breakfast, weekday: A six-minute egg and Marmite or Bovril soldiers. Americans, feel free to google.
Breakfast, weekend: Some extremely strong coffee, grapefruit juice, and steamed eggs with prosciutto and Parmesan at Buvette, in New York.
Car: A 250 GT California Spyder.
Child: Marlowe Ottoline Layng Sturridge.
Cocktail: A very, very dirty martini.
Cocktail appetizer: I’ve always been partial to a cocktail sausage.
Couple: Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin.
Date: Anywhere in Rome. Pasta and wine and walking and talking.
Diet: Something that allows pasta every day.
Dinner, weekday: Spaghetti Bolognese.
Dinner, weekend: Indian food from Tamarind, on the sofa.
Dress: I wore a powder-blue Gucci dress in Cannes. It had a leather bodice that almost looked like a ballerina outfit. My idea of heaven.
Drive: Naples to Positano.
Enemy: Someone funny and clever whom I secretly respect.
Escape: A great book.
First COUPLE: Michelle and Barack.
Fit: John Galliano bias-cut dresses for Dior, from the 90s.
Flaw: I know people criticize the English for their bad teeth—I’ve always found an imperfect set rather attractive.
Friend: Someone who doesn’t indulge in misery, and who makes you pee your pants laughing.
Hideaway: I bought a 16th-century thatched cottage when I was in my twenties. It’s like a little hobbit house where my friends and I, and then our children, sort of grew up.
Hotel: Le Sirenuse, in Positano.
Insult:
“Knob head.”
Jacket: A Gucci jacket in blue, red, and green leather. That always puts me in a good mood.
Lunch, weekday: Steak and chips from Balthazar.
Lunch, weekend: A roast chicken with all the trimmings.
Match: Federer/Nadal.
Movie: True Romance.
Name: I think there is an Italian count called Count Francesco de Siena. Maybe I should marry him?
Neighbor: A generous baker and his vintner wife. Hopefully with children my daughter’s age.
Nonfiction book: Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People, by P. J. O’ Rourke.
Novel: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez.
Pants: Where I come from, that’s a rather inappropriate question, but since you asked, La Perla.
Pet: Walter the miniature wirehaired dachshund.
Piece of advice: “What goes up must come down.”
Podcast: Desert Island Discs.
President: Zelensky.
Quote: James Wright said something which I feel is so truthful and soothing, and has got me out of many a bind. “I’ve never said life is meaningless, I’ve said it is tragic. I think it is intensely precious. God, sometimes I think I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with me. But it hurts like hell.”
Restaurant: Lo Scoglio in Nerano, Italy.
Shoes: Anything with shearling hidden inside.
Singer: Etta James.
Storm: Monsoon rain in the tropics.
Television series: The original Brideshead Revisited.
Theme song to your life: “Is That All There Is?,” by Peggy Lee.
Time of day: Dinnertime.
Toast: “To lying, stealing, and cheating. If you are going to lie, lie to save a friend. If you are going to cheat, cheat death. If you are going to steal, steal the heart of someone you love.”
Vacation: An Aman resort anywhere in the world. (She says, hoping they read this and act accordingly.)
View: My baby when she’s sleeping.
Wake-up time: Eight hours after bedtime.
Work of art: Anything by Turner.
Sienna’s Essentials
