SIENNA MILLER AS FRANCES KITTREDGE
THE ACTOR PIVOTS TO PIONEERING IN KEVIN COSTNER’S HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA
THE CULTURE
In the sprawling 19th-century epic Horizon: An American Saga —Chapter 1, Sienna Miller’s Frances Kittredge is, she tells us, a pioneer taken to the town of Horizon by her husband James (Tim Guinee) “against her wishes, to some degree. She is put in a really volatile situation. Everybody’s journey west was in search of a better life, but with really no knowledge of what they were heading into, so they had to adapt or die, basically.” To tune into the Western mindset, Miller watched the work of John Ford and Sergio Leone (“Once Upon A Time In The West was one of my favourite films growing up”), and in Moab, Utah, where they shot, found a bookshop that proved instructive. “I read factual books about travelling west, about settlers, and photographic books of the people in that period in that area, which I found helpful.”
THE VOICE
Frances isn’t based on a real individual, but Miller found inspiration in one. “It’s really hard to get an authentic voice from that period. I have a dialect coach friend called Tim Monich, who I did not work with on this, but I asked him, ‘Where would I even begin to sound like somebody from that period, from this place?’” Monich suggested esteemed Massachusetts poet Elizabeth Bishop, so Miller imagined that Frances was from Massachusetts too, and began listening intensely to old recordings of Bishop. “I don’t think Kevin [Costner, who directed the film] pays much attention to accents; I don’t think that really registers with him as important, but I love that part of my job,” explains Miller. “I have a standard American accent tha
