‘Wander Darkly’ Stars Sienna Miller & Diego Luna On Their First Reactions To Emotionally Potent Drama — Sundance Studio

When Sienna Miller first read the script for Tara Miele’s Wander Darkly, her emotional response was immediate and intense. “I found myself really emotional at the end, and actually, every time I went back and read the script, there were these beats, and I couldn’t help but cry,” the actress says. “I felt like if that was happening in a reading of a piece of material, it was something I had to do.”

Premiering at Sundance yesterday, the genre-bending drama centers on Adrienne (Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna), new parents who are forced to confront issues with their relationship, in the aftermath of a traumatic incident.

A longtime friend of Miller, Luna had a similarly strong reaction to Wander Darkly, when he first was met with the material. “I think it’s a very smart way to talk about love. I think it’s really sad, but I have kids, and I don’t see stories of love that I want them to see. Everything is about the immediate thing,” the actor said, joining his co-star and director at Deadline’s Sundance Studio. “This [relationship] is quite interesting because they’re willing to look back. I don’t think we do that often in life.”

For Miele, who is a mother of two, the inspiration for the story came in the wake of a car accident she’d been in with her husband about six years ago. “I really was struck by this moment of insane gratitude for the whole messy, delicate, little life that we had built,” the director explained. “It really gave me a very fresh perspective on what mattered in my life, and in that moment, I was like, ‘Oh my god. I just want to share this feeling.’”

While contemplating the project early on, Miele had two specific goals in mind. “I really wanted to do something that structurally reflected the way that my brain works, which is very rarely in the present, but often in the past, or projecting into the future,” she said. “The other thing was finding a way to reflect on a relationship—the best and the worst moments of it—and to try to take stock of, what is it worth, at the end of the day?”

For more from our conversation with the director and stars of Wander Darkly, click on the video above.

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