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Sienna Miller is happy as ever at 40: She's working on a new Netflix drama, remodeling her home, and taking charge of her womanhood. But her big series role as Sophie Whitehouse is bringing back some dark memories.

Speaking with ELLE UK, the actress, who was born in the United States and raised in London, said that playing Sophie in Anatomy of a Scandal has been like reliving one of the most painful times in her life: when then fiancé Jude Law had an affair with his children's nanny.

Sophie is the wife of a member of parliament, whose world is turned upside down after her husband is accused of rape by a colleague with whom he'd had an affair. The six-part series—an adaptation of the novel by Sarah Vaughan—addresses issues of consent, toxic masculinity, and privilege, but it is also a heavy role for Miller, who unfortunately can relate quite well to her character.

Miller and Law were the couple of the early 2000s. They met in 2003, on the set of the film Alfie, and got engaged on Christmas in 2004. But after Law's highly publicized slipup with nanny Daisy Wright, Miller ended things. The two reportedly reunited years later, in 2009, but officially split in 2011.

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"It was familiar terrain, because I've experienced some of the things that she experienced. And the feelings were familiar. [But] her way of dealing with what's thrown at her is the absolute antithesis of what my way is. And so, in a kind of twisted, tourism sense, I just wanted to see how it would feel to react differently. I know that sounds weird, because you'd think it would be deeply unpleasant to sit in that space," Miller told the magazine of her role.

The actress said that when she filmed the scene in which Sophie's husband, James, confesses to her that he had an affair, her heart was beating so fast that her mic actually caught the sound.

"I had a mic on my chest and there's a heartbeat that comes in. It was my actual heartbeat being picked up by the monitor, getting faster and faster," the actress said. "It made me think, remember, and put myself back in that position."

Despite the anxiety she evidently felt remembering that time in her life, Miller—who recently froze her eggs in hopes of having a second child one day—said it now "feels like somebody else's existence. … I can go and visit it and look at it, but it doesn't feel like my life." And reliving it all through acting, she said, has been almost therapeutic.

"There is something cathartic, I suppose, about spending time in an ugly space that's familiar. And maybe reclaiming it?" Miller said. "I don't know what the psychology of it is. But there is something where maybe you can substitute a memory with something else."

Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets. 

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