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.
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 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. 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. 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.
thumb|left|upright|Guillory in 2007
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". 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 '. 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.
In 2003, after a friend had received a script for The Principles of Lust, Guillory claims she "read it and couldn't put it down, and begged to read for the part". She was impressed by director Penny Woolcock's unconventional style of shooting, without rehearsing the actors, using raw takes and improvisational performances. For the role of Juliette, Guillory performed nude in the film's sex scenes which were filmed during the first week of filming, making her somewhat nervous. She later went on to say that it was one of her favorite acting experiences. That year she also played her first big Hollywood role. She was cast as Jill Valentine, one of the lead characters in the video game adaptation sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The filmmakers had searched widely for an actress to portray Jill and found her in Guillory, who had to "please not only the movie-going audience but also the gamers." She was "a dead ringer for Jill Valentine". Guillory studied the original character's movements by watching playthroughs of the video game Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Before getting the script for the film, she had not been familiar with the video games or seen Resident Evil (2002).
She said about her role: