| Looks, charm, a Saint on his arm. Four Nights
In Knaresborough by Shane Watson
Back in the spring the Appleton sisters of All Saints were
photographed for the July cover of Marie Claire. The scene
in the studio was much as you would expect - photographer,
fashion editor, hair stylist, make-up artist, and a couple
of "friends of the band" including a pale-faced bloke who
only had eyes for Natalie (the older one). At one point the
two of them disappeared and when they reemerged his state
of mind had not improved, and the hair stylist had to start
over again. The man in question was Jonny Lee Miller.
"He was absolutely smitten," says my source, "he couldn't
take his eyes off her. It was a bit wet actually." That's
the thing about Jonny Lee Miller, you can't quite decide if
he's a man or a mouse, a sexy Sick Boy (the peroxide blonde
junkie in Trainspotting,the first film we saw him in) or a
sensitive Edmund (the bookish character he plays in his latest
film, Mansfield Park). They are both good performances, the
former glamorous, cocky, punkish, the latter intense and gently
simmering, but you can't help wondering where, in between
the two extremes, lies the real Lee Miller. The last thing
you expect is that, in person, he will make Edmund Bertram
look like an exhibitionist.
My first glimpse of him is standing side on, in a phone booth
at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn - baggy Carhart trousers,
ackpack, cropped brown hair - every inch the fit boy you would
expect of an All Saints escort. But then he turns and reveals
the fragile, pale features and dark eyes that you associate
with tortured poets or young World War I officers (one of
his best performances to date was the shell-shocked Billy
Prior in Regeneration). He is polite, speaks slowly and gently
and doesn't say a lot, although you can tell he's trying.
Lee Miller is the latest of his peers to show what he's made
of on the stage. His mate Jude Law is currently starring in
'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Young Vic, and last year Ewan
McGregor scored a hit with Little Malcolm and His Struggle
Against the Eunuchs. Returning to the theatre for the first
time in five years, he plays one of the knights who murdered
Thomas à Becket, in Four Nights in Knares-borough,
an ensemble piece that's been compared in style to Reservoir
Dogs.
"Something like Mansfield Park doesn't really feel like work,"
he says. "I guess that's why I'm doing this. I wanted to feel
like a new boy again [he is the youngest in the cast at 26].
You get so judged as a film actor and people think they know
who you are, so you wanna go back and reaffirm for yourself
that you have a right to be doing what you're doing."
You can't blame Jonny Lee Miller for wanting to prove himself.
He is far more famous than he has a right to be because Sick
Boy was the sexiest part in the sexiest film of the decade
but, aside from Regeneration, he hasn't had much to shout
about since - unless you count Plunkett and Macleane, which
the critics didn't, or his performance in Afterglow, which
he dismisses as "wooden".
Then there's the fact that Brit acting's golden boys Ewan
McGregor and Jude Law are his friends, and colleagues in the
production company Natural Nylon, and together they enjoy
a kind of Rat Pack celebrity independent of their work, based
on looks, charm and mutual connections. They are to the current
London party scene what Jagger, Terence Stamp and David Bailey
were 30 years ago, even if McGregor is the only one who has
really shifted into top gear. Finally, Lee Miller has a particular
reputation with the ladies. He's already been married and
divorced (to Angelina Jolie, one of Hollywood hottest newcomers
and his co-star on the first film he made, Hackers), he's
been out with Kate Moss and now there's Nat.
Since they met, Natalie has turned actress and, along with
two of her fellow All Saints, is starring in Dave Stewart's
film, Honest. "Yeah man, that's something, because I was like
I'm never going out with an actress again. No, actually, you
want someone who understands what goes with being a little
bit famous. If they didn't, it would be uncomfortable for
them."
Recently they were voted 1999's "Coolest Couple" (no sniggering,
please) by the read-ers of Elle magazine: "I thought, this
is just too funny. Then they read my name out and it was highly
embarrassing." Nevertheless he went along with it, maybe for
the fun of beating co-nominees Jude and Sadie to the ultimate
prize (the other one, best actor, went to Joseph Fiennes).
So far he has not been stung by a kiss-and-tell, though
I remind him about his ex-wife's confessions of sado-masochistic
tendencies (they married in black leather and Jolie wrote
Jonny on her shirt in her blood). "Oh yeah," he says, unfazed.
"I don't mind that at all. That's really good for my image."
It's possible that Lee Miller flirts with the dark side to
distract attention from his sensitive looks, but none the
less there is something intense and tightly contained about
him, which is the key to his appeal and explains why he is
so often cast as a man waiting to explode.
Next he plays the lead in the film of Iain Banks's Complicity,
a black tale about a journalist who becomes a murder suspect,
and a part in Love, Honour and Obey, "a sort of a gangstery
film, mostly improvised" with a stellar Brit line-up from
Jude Law to Rhys Ifans and Ray Winstone.
Meanwhile he runs every morning, "just over an hour, five
or six days a week. I'm getting silly now: I run with weights
and back packs." That's about more than clearing the mind,
isn't it? "Well, it's about getting really fit," he laughs.
And then it's time to go and he's walking away, a muscled-up
commando walk that makes you think he might at any moment
squat down and do some one-arm press-ups. But minutes later,
when I see him in the phone box (10 to one it's Nat again),
he looks like a vulnerable kid. Who knows?
From This is london
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