Sienna Guillory

Biography

Sienna Tiggy Guillory (/ˈɡɪləri/; 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.

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 was 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 named Jace, 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.

In 1997, Guillory accompanied a ballerina friend to the London modeling agency Select Model Management and was soon signed. She modeled 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 modeling for a few years, Guillory returned her focus to acting in 2000. She is signed to Independent Models in London.

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.