Sienna may be Jonathan’s daughter, but that doesn’t mean she got the role instantaneously, like some upcoming young stars I know. Sienna had to do an audition just like any other actor to prove she could do this, even if it was just for a minutes on screen. Jonathan’s other daughter Trice made the music for the movie’s soundtrack which also has music from Nat King Cole.
What it comes down to is not working alone. Like mentioned in the last article, it takes a team to get a job done. When the team includes a family or is a family, that’s even better. Now when Sienna first read the script’s draft featuring her character Violet, it seemed like Sienna was reading about a completely normal child just in this place where she doesn’t know where anything is, and looking for mom. Now that the script is changed, and Sienna is more one with Violet, it feels like the character has become very different according to Sienna’s perspective. There’s lots more Sienna can explain, and in a matter of minutes, we can understand both her and her character, who understands there are people she can go to (in the movie, not us).
HNMAG: Can each of you tell me what your role was in Fate?
Sienna Soho Baker: I played the role of Violet. She’s a latchkey kid and doesn’t have anyone she can go to.
HNMAG: And how did it feel to be in Vancouver for this shoot?
Sienna Soho Baker: I really like it here. I think Vancouver and Victoria is a very nice place. I’m very glad that we chose here to shoot, and I think it has amazing shooting places so I think it will do really good in the movie.
HNMAG: What about the set in Victoria? What was that like?
Sienna Soho Baker: In Victoria, we were mostly in the castle and I love the castle and when I was playing the role, I was looking around and it was a very spectacular place.
HNMAG: It talks about true love and saving your soul. Did you all feel you could connect to the subject matter?
Sienna Soho Baker: Well… I think it was mostly something new to me, just because I don’t really go through that much of the love and the hurtness of what the main character goes through. Also the character I’m playing is just kind of there (giggles)
HNMAG: Were there any emotional moments on set that were too much to take at times?
Sienna Soho Baker: There was definitely emotional characters, but it wasn’t too hard to do.
Sienna talked about preparing for a crying scene and seeing how she could do it while interacting with her character. It sounds like this young lady is quite the professional. No doubt her dad is proud of her.
HNMAG: This is going to be a penultimate film for your father, the director. How does it feel to be in this?
Sienna Soho Baker: I’m really excited that I’m able to be in this movie because I was in the last movie that he made. But since it’s one of his last ones, I’m glad that I get to be in it. I’ve been working very hard for this, I was supposed to play this when I was 6 years old. That’s when I got casted, and it got moved up and moved up and now I’m 12, playing a 9 year old. But I think I’m finally ready and I’m super happy that I got the role.
HNMAG: Is there anything else you’ve acted in or will be acting in?
Sienna Soho Baker: My dad is also making a TV show about our family so I’m in that. It’s about what we do in our lives, and what is about with his job and the movie.
HNMAG: How do all of you manage to balance things out for shoot days?
Sienna Soho Baker: Oh, basically when I’m shooting, I try to get a little bit of work done, but honestly I’m there for most of the day. But days that I have off or not shooting, I”m always doing my homework. Any free time I have, I just try to go through that, or I just try to work on my script. I think that balancing it is a little hard because I have to find the hours but I’ve been getting most of my work done which is good. I also have leisure time from my teachers because they know that I’m acting. So I have more time on my assignments.
HNMAG: Any other locations that you’ve been to during this shoot?
Sienna Soho Baker: Right now, I’ve only been through the castle. But on Saturday and Sunday I’m going to this other location. It’s a hotel lobby and it’s really nice.
HNMAG: There were lots of top notch actors on set like Faye Dunnaway and Harvey Keitel. Did you get any on-set experience with meeting them?
Sienna Soho Baker: Yeah, so I loved working with all of them. I had a few scenes with Harvey Keitel, and obviously I have a lot of my scenes with Brandon Routh. I think it was so fun acting and they taught me a lot about what like they’ve done in the past and they just kind of gave me an input about how they did it. I think it really helped my acting, and I think acting with them since they’re all very hard to get, I’m just very happy I got to work with them because it might be like a once in a lifetime opportunity experience.
HNMAG: You got to learn some cool stuff from them AND you got to get along with them pretty well too.
Sienna Soho Baker: I’m also acting along with Mena Suvari, she plays my mom in the movie and I’m really excited to work with her. I met with her and I LOVE her as a person. She’s so nice and I think the connection that we have is really good for the movie.
Sienna and Mena sound like they’ve already formed a fantastic mother/daughter duo without any biological connection and I have to say it sounds really cool that they have.
HNMAG: The film has been in production for a little over 5 years, do you know what caused some of the delays?
Sienna Soho Baker: Mostly I think the delays is just that the script has gotten changed multiple times, and since everybody’s grown older, he’s had to change the script and either age it up or age it down a little bit. Since it’s gone over, they’ve bumped my lines up to be a 9 year old. Since I actually have a 9 year old sister, so I kind of have to like take perspective of what she does.
HNMAG: So, yeah. She serves as an inspiration and you take some of her mannerisms and put them into your character?
Sienna Soho Baker: Yeah. Over the 5 years, I think my character honestly has gotten better because it’s been changing so many times. I’ve talked to my dad and we’ve gone over the lines and see if there was anything that I would do and personally put into it.
HNMAG: Your dad explained to me how you had to prove yourself to get into this role with an audition. What exactly did you do to show him that you can make him proud?
Sienna Soho Baker: I had to actually prove myself and work by learning the lines, I had to talk to him about the lines, had to go over them. I also had to do an audition tape where I took my lines and went into the room with him and I said them to him. He really liked it and since I’ve been in the other movie, I was a lot younger then but when I auditioned for this, he really liked how I played it.
HNMAG: And how did you manifest your acting skills? Was there any training you did?
Sienna Soho Baker: Yeah. So, for this role since my other movie was so long ago, I got an acting coach and she really helped me a lot. She really helped me pursue the character, and understand that it’s not all about emotions, it’s about the actions that you do with your emotions. You have to understand that you can’t make it look fake because it’s just not a good person to act or movie that will turn out. You have to understand that if you were basically going to do it in real life, you should probably learn how to do that in a movie. Like if you were in a crying scene that was coming up, you wouldn’t just start bawling in real life. You would be trying to hold it back, act like it’s a real thing.
HNMAG: You’ve got a couple acting roles here and I can definitely see you getting more in the future. What kind of acting roles would you like to take when you’re older?
Sienna Soho Baker: I definitely want to act when I’m older, and since I’ve been in movies before, I think I’d want to act in movies more than shows. But I would be grateful for anything, and I think roles that I want to play, a kid I guess but I think it’s fun playing somebody that I’m not. Like in this one, she’s a lonely and very sad kid, and I think it’s fun to see each perspective of each kid. In a different acting thing that I might get, it might be somebody that’s really excited and really happy all the time, and then like a tragic thing happens. Or it’s like a totally different thing than me, it could be like she’s very scary. I’m really excited to play and get the roles that I would get in the future?
Sienna has had some experience working on another film of her father’s called Inconceivable. She went on to explain her acting in some of that. Of course, it’s hard to remember some things at such a young age (me and someone else can understand that) but she remembers it being a new experience and how she worked very hard with it at that age. It helped her since now she’s older, Sienna can turn her performance into something more and she understands roles a little better and put emotion into them.