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I’d rather be extreme than squeaky clean
Miley Cyrus shot to fame as wholesome teen idol Hannah Montana before causing outrage with her explicit ‘twerking’ antics. Now, as she stars in Woody Allen’s first ever TV series, she tells why...
Miley Cyrus is looking very 1960s today when we meet at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, wearing a multicoloured crochet waistcoat she found in a vintage shop, tight white jeans printed with portraits of the menagerie of animals she keeps, and towering platform shoes. The look is apt given we’re here to talk about her role as a fiery young 1960s counterculturalist in the first TV series to be written and directed by Woody Allen, Crisis In Six Scenes.
‘This is my style anyway,’ she shrugs when I mention it. And tracing her development over the past decade, it’s not hard to see what drew her to the free-spirited ethos of the 1960s. Miley was 13 when she shot to stardom in 2006 playing squeaky clean Hannah Montana, the heroine of the Disney pop star drama that ran for four series. Her goodytwo-shoes image was lapped up by teenage girls all over the world and made millions through the spin-off merchandise, albums and a movie.
Unsurprisingly, Miley used the role to cross over to an even more lucrative grown-up pop career that’s seen her sell 16 million records, but along the way she cast off her crown as queen of the tweens with a series of risqué episodes. It started with a Vanity Fair photoshoot she did aged 15, smouldering provocatively and wearing nothing but a strategically placed white bedsheet. As her pop career took off, she made a series of explicit ‘twerking’ performances at various music awards shows while promoting her hit albums Can’t Be Tamed in 2010 and Bangerz in 2013, and appeared in her underwear and then naked astride a demolition ball in the video for her single Wrecking Ball.
Then there were the frequent assertions that she likes to smoke dope, which is legal in California with a prescription (‘ Time fl ies when you’re stoned,’ she jokes to me today when discussing her work schedule). And the very public spat she had with her father, country music legend Billy Ray Cyrus of Achy Breaky Heart fame, over Twitter a few years ago when her mother Tish filed for divorce. During a previous separation from Tish he had claimed that Miley’s success on Hannah Montana had ruined their family.
Suffice to say the reputation she’s gained, at just 23, is of someone who does exactly what she likes, when she likes. Is that the case? ‘People talk a lot about being “balanced” and, yes, balance is important,’ she says. ‘But I like to challenge that. I think people are sometimes too balanced, meaning they’re too comfortable with themselves. They say, “You’ve got to care about other people but you’ve got to balance it with being good to yourself,” and I think, “Well, are you balanced or are
‘George Clooney told me if you keep a pig indoors things can get crazy’
you just into the caring about yourself part?” They say, “I like to help people,” but if you see someone on the street when it’s 40°C, will you give them some money and walk on, or will you cross the street and get a bottle of cold water for them? Because if you do that, then yes you’re good, but if you don’t then you’re just “blah” and I hate “blah”. I hope “blah” is not a word that will be written on my gravestone. I’d rather be extreme – and I can definitely be extreme. Just ask my parents!’
It was both Miley Cyrus past and present that drew Woody Allen to her for his new show, which is set in the strife- torn America of the 1960s when there were riots on college campuses, anti-war and black power demonstrations, and clashes between police and activists. It’s about a middle- class suburban family whose household is turned upside down when they’re visited by a stranger named Lennie, who’s on the run from the police. When Woody was looking for someone to play the character, he happened to see a clip of Miley on the US comedy show Saturday Night Live. He’d noticed her talent when his children were watching Hannah Montana, but when he saw her again he felt she was perfect for the part.
The only problem was, Miley wasn’t up for it. When Woody contacted her she’d decided to put acting on the back burner. ‘I wasn’t planning on doing much acting because I’d decided I didn’t want to step into someone else’s character as I’ m already a character myself,’ she says. ‘I’d just finished a music tour and moved onto a farm in Malibu because I have, like, a thousand animals, and all I wanted to do was hang out with them.
‘ But when Woody called I was too embarrassed
to say, “Sorry, I’m too busy playing with my pigs!” So I thought, “I’ll go to New York, meet Woody, maybe get a selfie with him, and then I’ll tell him I can’t do the show because, well, I’m busy playing with the pigs.”’
When she got into the presence of the legendary director however, her plan fell apart. ‘Once I was in the room with him I didn’t have the b***s to say that, so I said, “OK, yeah, I’ll read the script…” And then I read the script and I became obsessed with the character, because it didn’t feel like reading about someone else, it felt like reading about me but back in that revolutionary era of the 1960s. It felt like doing this would be me being myself in a different time.
‘ But whether it’s set in the 1960s or not, it’s about having something to fight for,’ she says. ‘When I was filming the show I’d go back to the apartment I was staying in and watch these Donald Trump rallies. I’d see the protesters and, OK, we’re less violent now than in the 60s, but it wasn’t like we’re on another planet. This wasn’t something I had to talk to my grandma about. It’s something that’s not so far from where we are right now.’ When I tell her Woody told me she was ‘a wonderful actress, terrific with the gag lines, and a lovely person’ she seems surprised. ‘Woody said that? You know, I’ve had other people tell me Woody said great things about me, but you’ll never hear them from him until after the work is done. You have to make sure you’re not the sort of person who needs a pat on the back after a scene with Woody. You just have to be confident in your own work. I like working that way, though. I like that there are no big trailers on the set, and the catering isn’t, “We’ll give you a foot rub while you eat caviar.” On a Woody Allen set you’re there to work, and that’s the way it should be. I’m a hard worker, and if I’m going to do something, I eat, sleep and breathe it.’
When she’s not working, she says, she likes to hide away at home. ‘People are shocked to hear that, because when I’m working I’m always having my picture taken, but the truth is that’s the least favourite part of my job. I love to work, but I don’t love that public part. When I’m not working I never want to leave my house. I like to stay at home and chill with my animals.’
Miley was born in Franklin, Tennessee, but these days home is her new farm in Malibu. ‘Although I also have a place in Nashville too, so I go back and forth, but I’m mostly in Malibu because that’s where my animals are. I’m an animal hoarder and so is my dad, so I grew up with them. I’m the only person I know who has seven dogs and then asks if I can babysit other people’s dogs. I just want to be around dogs as much as possible. And of course, the pigs.’
She has two pigs, one called Puddles and one called Pig Pig. ‘Puddles is kind of scary, but she will sit if you offer her biscuits, so that was a selling point when we got her. I got Pig Pig on my Bangerz tour – someone showed up with her and said, “We know you love animals”, and left her in my dressing room. She used to sleep on my couch at home until she bit my ankle when she wanted a peach I was eating. And then I met George Clooney and I showed him a picture of Pig Pig, and he told me he had a pig for a long time and it lived in the house and things got a little crazy. You do hear of farmers who pass out drunk and the pig eats them, and now I have younger nieces and I didn’t want that happening to them. I didn’t want to have to tell their mother, “Sorry, the pig got her.” So now the pigs live outside.’ The menagerie is growing. ‘We’re trying to get Silkie chickens. They’re like the Persian cat of the chicken world, the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. And I just got these two mini-horses. They were going to be taken to Mexico and turned into glue, and my friend said, “If you can buy them, we can save them.” So we got these horses named Pumpkin and Dumpling.’ She narrows her eyes, looking stern. ‘Liam calls them Johnny and Freddie. But their names are Pumpkin and Dumpling, OK? We need to be clear on that.’
Liam, of course, is Liam Hemsworth, the Australian actor best known as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games movies. They met on the set of the 2010 film The Last Song, but have broken up countless times in the past few years, and the periods when Miley has seemed at her most outrageous have been those when the couple’s relationship has been on hold. When we speak today, however, they are engaged to be married.
Liam is said to be low-key and quiet. Is it a case of opposites attracting? ‘He does leave a lot of the energy for me,’ she says. ‘But there’s lots to Liam you don’t see. Yeah, he’s an actor, but he’s also a surfer and a photographer and a painter and so he has all these things. Plus, because he’s an actor he tries to be quiet in public, so that when he plays a character people can paint him into anything they want. He’s a blank canvas. I’m not like that. I’m not an actress, I’m not a singer, I’m not a blank canvas, I’m myself, and as far as canvases go, I come with paint splattered all over me!’
And after they marry, will they live in America or Australia? ‘ If Trump gets elected here in November, I’m moving to Australia. And I’m happy that I have an ally to go with and a place to go to. Because I don’t know much about the future, but I know that if Donald Trump is running this country then I’ll be living in Australia, for sure!’ Crisis In Six Scenes will be available to stream on Amazon Prime from Friday, with further episodes released weekly.