Sienna Tiggy Guillory (; born 16 March 1975) is an English actress and former model. She portrayed Jill Valentine in several entries of the Resident Evil action-horror film series. Other prominent roles include elf princess Arya Dröttningu in the fantasy-adventure film Eragon and the title role in the TV miniseries Helen of Troy. She has appeared in TV shows including Fortitude, Stan Lee's Lucky Man, and Luther.
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Early life
Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, Guillory is the daughter of American folk guitarist Isaac Guillory and his first wife, English model Tina Thompson, who married in 1973. Her father was the son of American and Turkish-Jewish parents and born at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Her parents moved to Fulham, London, when Guillory was two, then later to Norfolk when she was 11. At the age of ten, she went to stay with cousins in Mexico to learn Spanish.
She has a half-brother, who has the same mother. Her father adopted him. Her parents divorced in 1990 when Sienna was 14. In 1993, her father married Vickie McMillan, and had two children with her, Ellie and Jacob.
Guillory attended Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk, where she took part in numerous school productions. She started horseback riding at the age of two. At 14, she was given a horse, which she named The Night Porter, or "Porty", after the film The Night Porter; Guillory was a fan of its leading actress Charlotte Rampling.
In December 2000, Guillory's father died of cancer at the age of 53.
Career
Modelling
In 1997, Guillory accompanied a ballerina friend to the London modelling agency Select Model Management and was soon signed. She modelled to support her acting career. As a model, she worked in campaigns for Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry and Paul Smith and appeared on the covers of several fashion magazines. In 1999, she became the face of the Hugo Boss fragrance campaign, succeeding model Karen Ferrari and continuing the campaign for three years. After modelling for a few years, Guillory returned her focus to acting in 2000. She is signed to Independent Models in London.
Acting
Guillory explained that she "became an actor because I wanted to know what it was like to be other people. Because possibly I don't like myself", and later said "I hate acting, really hate it. I kind of fell into it sideways ... I started acting because I got offered a job when I was 16, and they wanted to pay me £8,000, and we'd always lived on Family Support". She went on to say that her frustration with later film roles left her bitter, but after seeing Helen Mirren on stage she was inspired again.
In 1993, Guillory made her screen debut in Riders, a TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper's novel of the same name, for which the casting directors needed a young actress who was able to ride a horse. Her performance landed her another small role in the miniseries The Buccaneers, opposite Mira Sorvino.
Before becoming a model to support her acting career, Guillory waited tables at a club. In an interview in 2000, she said about the experience "Supporting my acting habit with waitressing was probably the most useful thing I've done." During her time as a model, she studied acting at the New World School of the Arts and the Paris Conservatoire, also taking small television and film roles in The Future Lasts a Long Time (1996), The Rules of Engagement (1999), Star! Star! (1999), Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000), The 3 Kings (2000), and Two Days, Nine Lives (2000). During this time, Guillory decided to go on with her acting career because "I was so scared of going to university and being with people my own age again, having been with that tiny little sect of girls in Norfolk whose daddies were farmers and politicians, who didn't trust me and didn't know where I was coming from".
She returned to film with a more substantial role in the thriller Sorted (2000). Guillory went on to appear in the BBC production Take a Girl Like You, a television adaptation of Kingsley Amis's novel of the same name. She portrayed Jenny Bunn, the story's virginal heroine, and gained critical attention for her part in the period piece. Guillory was pleased to have played a more innocent character, saying "I've played floozies, psychopaths, assassins, crackheads... It's nice to do something with a lighter touch." The production did not fare well in the ratings.
In 2001, Guillory continued with other roles in predominantly British films, including Oblivious, Late Night Shopping (with husband Enzo Cilenti), The Last Minute, and Superstition. 2002 saw Guillory appear in The Time Machine, alongside Guy Pearce and Jeremy Irons. She was pleased to take on a larger scale film, after having worked on low-budget independent films, and compared the experience with "finding an unicorn in your sock drawer". She played Emma, the fiancée of Pearce's character, who was killed early in the film and whose death set off its main events.
Media
In 2001, readers of Esquire UK voted Guillory "Britain's Most Eligible Woman" and featured her in a pictorial in the magazine. Guillory was photographed for the cover and shoot by photographer Jonathan Glynn Smith. In 2002, she was number 89 on Maxim's "Hot 100 List" of the "world's 100 most beautiful women", and in 2007 Guillory was voted number 54 at Askmen.com's Top 99 Countdown.
Guillory has been quoted as disliking the Hollywood culture, saying she does not wish to be part of it.
Personal life
Guillory married actor Nick Moran in July 1997; they divorced in 2000. In 2000, Guillory began dating English actor Enzo Cilenti, and they married in 2002. The couple appeared in the 2001 film Late Night Shopping, and have continued to appear together in various works. In August 2004, Guillory and Cilenti cycled five stages of the Tour de France to raise money for charity.
