| Meet Mr cool
He's one half of the "coolest couple in Britain" according
to Elle magazine. He's a member of the ultra hip Brit pack
mafia, he's best friends with Ewan McGregor and Jude Law and
he's one of the most sought after young actors around.
But ask Jonny Lee Miller what he makes of all the hype surrounding
him and you'll get an embarrassed grin rather than a satisfied
smile.
"The cool tag is amusing, it really is. It's so ridiculous,"
he says, squirming in his seat, "because it's something that
you see all the time when you read magazines, but it's odd
when someone writes that about you. That's when you realise
what a load of rubbish it is, really."
The 26-year-old actor was already considered hip when he
appeared as Sick Boy in the award-winning film Trainspotting,
but his 'cool' credentials shot up when he started dating
Natalie Appleton from All Saints. The pair have gained as
much attention for their relationship as for their careers,
but the Scottish-born star who grew up in Kingston-upon-Thames,
Surrey, and started out as a waiter in the Hard Rock cafe
in London's Piccadilly, takes it all in his stride.
"I don't find it annoying," he shrugs, "as long as there's
nothing malicious or untrue said about me. It's just something
that will be gone tomorrow. It's just one of those things."
His latest film Mansfield Park, which opens this week, is
a Hollywood-ised adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, and
has already raised eyebrows among critics for its contemporary
feel and scenes featuring nudity.
Lee Miller, who plays Edmund Bertram, a wealthy young man
who falls in love with his destitute relative Fanny Price,
says he was eager to do the role despite not being a big Austen
fan.
"I didn't know anything about Jane Austen and the films that
were being made about her work were not normally the kind
of films I would go and see," he admits. "But it was nice
to read a script that promptly changed my way of thinking
about them. I was also fascinated by my character's many contradictions.
Edmund sees himself as a sort of pillar of goodness, a man
with a grave responsibility for the world. But he takes doing
the right thing too seriously and forgets his heart."
In fact, it's not the first time Lee Miller has buttoned
up in breeches and waistcoat for a Jane Austen adaptation.
He was just eight years old when he stepped out in front of
the camera for the BBC TV version of Mansfield Park, when
he played one of the Price children.
"I had a bigger trailer when I was eight," he quips.
He also had big ambitions to grow up and become James Bond,
but unlike thousands of schoolboys who harboured similar dreams,
Lee Miller had more experience of 007 than most of the world.
His grandfather, Bernard Lee, played M in the first 12 Bond
films and was an enormous influence on the schoolboy actor.
"I watched some of his films and knew that's what I wanted
to do too," he smiles. "I was only disappointed that he died
before he could see me in theatre because that was his major
love. This is why I'm so interested in it myself."
Lee Miller's father Alan Miller was also an actor, and worked
with the BBC for 20 years. As well as his acclaimed theatre
work in Beautiful Thing and Entertaining Mr Sloane, Lee Miller
now has a raft of highly praised films behind him, including
Trainspotting, Afterglow and Regeneration.
He's also had a stint in Hollywood where he met and married
the American actress Angelina Jolie. The pair broke up less
than two years later and Lee Miller says he has no desire
to make it big in the States.
"I've only done two films in North America and one of them
was in Canada, but I'm quite happy here," he says.
His next two movies are British-based. Complicity, a big
screen adaptation of the Iain Banks novel sees him playing
a journalist. And in Love, Honour and Obey, which also stars
Sadie Frost and Denise Van Outen and opens on April 7, he
plays a man trying to infiltrate a family of gangsters.
The role also requires him to do a spot of singing, which
has impressed his pop star girlfriend greatly.
"Actually she's become a bit of a bore at parties because
she keeps going around telling people that I can sing," he
smiles.
Meanwhile, he had one or two pieces of advice for her after
she made her acting debut in the film Honest, which is to
be released in May.
"I just told her who to shout at and who to be nice to",
he says with a grin.
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