Sienna Miller Opens Up About Filming A 'Nine-Hour' Intimate Scene With Ben Affleck That Left Her In Tears

Actors have shared many stories over the years about filming intimate scenes, and most of them suggest it is far from easy. While it might look natural on screen, the reality behind the scenes is often uncomfortable and requires a lot of coordination.

For most people, acting out such moments with a colleague in front of a full crew would feel extremely awkward. In a normal workplace, that situation would never happen, but in the film industry, it is treated as part of the job.

Sienna Miller and Ben Affleck experienced this firsthand while working together on Live By Night. Miller played Emma Gould, while Affleck took on the role of Joe Coughlin, a gangster, and also directed the film.

The cast also included Zoe Saldana, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, and Chris Messina, making it a strong lineup on paper. However, despite the well-known names, the movie received a low score of 35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Before the film came out, Miller spoke with E! News about her experience working on the project. She shared some details about filming the more intimate scenes with Affleck and admitted that the process often left her overwhelmed.

Those moments were not just physically demanding but also emotionally draining, especially when they stretched across long filming hours.

Sienna Miller and Ben Affleck starred in Live By Night together Warner Bros.

"Ben and I are like brother and sister, thank God, so there was no awkwardness," she said of their more intimate scenes. "There was just a lot of stupid giggling. He's very professional—I am not, but he is. In that environment, it was a cool scene."

The American Sniper actor also looked back on one particular part of filming that stood out: "There was a montage in the script saying we did it everywhere: in the car, in the bar... I was like, 'That's an entire day of just love scenes! OK. How do we do this?'"

"Obviously, by the time nine hours of it has gone past, I was shaking with tears running down my face. I mean, I can't tell you— but you have to laugh. Ben is just professional. It is what it is."

At one stage during filming, things went on much longer than expected. Affleck reportedly told the director of photography to keep the cameras rolling as the scene continued, turning it into a drawn-out sequence that tested everyone involved.

What may have seemed like a short montage in the script ended up taking hours to shoot, with repeated takes and adjustments needed to get everything right.

This extended process made the experience feel even more intense, especially given the nature of the scene and the environment around them.

Miller said her relationship with Affleck is 'like brother and sister' Todd Williamson/Getty Images for Amazon

"I was like, 'OK, obviously Joe Coughlin is a real performer'," Miller quipped. "This happened three times, and by the third I [finally said], 'Are you joking?'"

She also mentioned that she struggled to keep a straight face during filming, often breaking into laughter at unexpected moments. The situation itself made it difficult to stay focused, even though the crew was working around them.

Apparently she couldn't stop laughing at her co-star and added: "There will be some outtakes from that [scene] where I have to walk out of the room because I just have tears running down my face."

It is not clear whether an intimacy coordinator was present on set during those scenes. In recent years, many productions have started using them to help manage boundaries and ensure actors feel comfortable.

Brooke M. Haney, who works as an intimacy coordinator, previously spoke about how these situations are handled if something unexpected happens during filming.

"Here's the thing — this isn't actually very common," she told US Weekly in 2024. "We're at work, right? With the lights bearing down, microphones, a couple of cameras in your face, director, DP [director of photography] and other necessary crew watching on monitors, it's just not that sexy."