Actress Sienna Miller has denied those previously reported claims made by Bob Dylan that her new film 'Factory Girl', about the life of sixties it girl and Warhol associate Edie Sedgwick, essentially alleges Dylan had a role in driving Sedgwick into the heroin addiction that arguably killed her (although she actually died of an overdose of prescribed barbiturates).
As previously reported, Dylan threatened legal action against the film because it includes a fictional rock star who has a doomed relationship with Sedgwick, which plays a part in her subsequent depression and drug addiction. Dylan alleged that aspects of Hayden Christensen's performance as that rock star implied that the character was meant to represent Dylan - implications that were all the stronger because of reports that an original draft of the script included a relationship between Dylan and Sedgwick, even though there is no evidence such a relationship ever actually took place in real life. Although Dylan has not launched a lawsuit against the film, he remains critical of it.
Responding to Dylan's criticism, Miller has told the Observer: "I'm Bob Dylan's biggest fan. I'm mortified that he's pissed off. She [Sedgwick] needed help and no one helped her. It's not that Dylan drove her to heroin addiction" On the similarities between Christensen's character and Dylan, she continued: "It very obviously looks and sounds like Dylan. But I think a lot of actors base performances on real life".
Factory Girl is properly released in the US later this month, though it opened in LA on the weekend in order for it to qualify for this year's Oscars. Dylan is not the only one of Sedgwick's contemporaries to criticise the film. Lou Reed told the New York Daily News: "I read that script. It's one of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen - by any illiterate retard - in a long time. There's no limit to how low some people will go to write something to make money. They're all a bunch of whores". That said, he did licence his song 'Heroin' to the movie's makers - the track is covered by Weezer's Brian Bell and drummer Patrick Wilson who respectively play Reed and John Cale in the film.