Hollywood star Sienna Miller reveals all to Vijay Pattni about her new film GI Joe.

“I can fire a rifle now”.

Clad in a black-leather jumpsuit, armed to the teeth with all manner of weaponry and sporting a seriously villainous attitude, Sienna Miller is not a lady you mess around with.

For her new film, GI Joe, Miller plays villainous temptress ‘The Baroness’, forming part of the highly secretive and deadly ‘Cobra’ team.

And the American-born actress is as dangerous as she appears on screen – to prepare for GI Joe, she spent six weeks performing fight-training with the renowned fight choreography team behind 1999 sci-fi hit The Matrix.

Sienna may have slugged her way through gruelling training sessions, but no amount of training could have prepared her for the onslaught of an even more powerful master: heels.

“I fight in six-inch heels, so it’s a precarious situation to begin with”, the actress explains.

And this precarious situation presented itself in the form of minor burns on set after running into an explosion at the wrong time, and nursing a swollen hand after slipping on a rubber bullet.

“It’s more my general klutziness I think. I will have some form of mild accident just walking down the street.”

It seems big-budget action flicks and GI Joe is a world away from Sienna’s usual roles.

The actress – who was apparently born in a New York theatre – began her career as a model working for the likes of Coca-Cola, Vogue and Pepe Jeans.

Her first foray into acting came as an actress in several amateur New York stage plays, before hitting the big screen opposite Elle Macpherson in 2001’s South Kensington.

Sienna began carving out a career as an indie-film actress, including her 2006 movie Factory Girl, and the Brit gangster thriller Layer Cake, opposite new 007 Daniel Craig.

And moving from these films to a summer blockbuster was quite a shock.

“There was a crew of a thousand”, explains Sienna, “and I was used to movies with more of an independent vibe.

“It was completely out of my comfort zone – I’ve never done anything on this scale. Once I let go of my anxiety, I really enjoyed it.”

And she certainly looks like she had a blast filming one of this summer’s big-budget blockbusters. GI Joe is ram-packed with explosions, fighting and – crucial for us petrolheads – car crashes.

Yes, a movie based on a toy action figure destroyed a total of 112 cars while filming the frantic chase scenes, eclipsing the previous record held by The Blues Brothers (104).

“Normally it’s not the kind of thing I would have done”, explains Top Gear’s Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, “but then I read the script and found it had really well developed characters, a great villain in my role and it’s a great story.

“Plus, it’s great to do a movie that people actually want to see.”

It’s only a shame we’ll never get to see the outtakes however – after learning how to shoot a rifle Sienna admitted she made “childish shooting sounds” with each shot.

But Sienna’s enthusiasm for the film – including her ‘childish’ sounds – could point to a return for ‘The Baroness’ in the near future…

“Hopefully, if this does well, there will be a GI Joe 2 and 3.”

Watch this space.

GI Joe is in cinemas from Friday 7th August 2009.

Read our review of GI Joe here

Watch the trailer for GI Joe here

View our GI Joe image gallery

Watch Sienna Miller. In a Hummer. In black leather