Amiah Miller is 21 years old and she’s building her empire on intuition. The Virginia-born actor, currently starring as Bridgettt Reese in Taylor Sheridan’s The Madison, is trained in Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai, rides horses, and prays. She is well on her way to mastering self-assurance; but remains faithful in the outcomes of divine intervention. 

It is this sharp sense of intuition that has helped Miller walk the fine line of Hollywood fortune—a fortune not defined by film credits or money but measured in presence and self-trust. “I love being pushed out of my comfort zone, but it has to feel creatively and morally aligned with who I am. I have such a specific vision of what I want my life and career to look like,” says Miller. “There are a lot of great things out there, but when I feel like I’m compromising something, I just can’t do that.” 

So she doesn’t. Miller identifies the projects she takes on as extensions of her personhood or as chapters of her evolving self. “There is a lot of power in the things I’ve said no to,” says Miller. We agree that her luck in never having had a “bad experience” in Hollywood is a result of her intentionality. Knowing who is attached and the story her character is working to tell are the markers of any great project for Miller. As are fate and cosmic timing. In our conversation about her journey to accepting the role of Reese in The Madison, Miller meditates on a chance encounter with a stranger and divine intervention’s handiwork. 

“When I was screen testing for the role in Wyoming, the man who picked me up from the airport told me that I looked identical to a younger Michelle Pfeiffer. And he had no idea why I was there. But everything is connected,” she continues. “And I thought, ‘This is a sign. I am Bridgett.’” 

Nothing, to Miller, feels entirely accidental. Our conversation slips from dandelions to wishing and manifesting, from signs and shared angel numbers to her guardian angel, her grandma Joyce. “I still feel her all around. She was always so supportive of me,” Miller shares. She credits her grandmother for her landing the role of Bridgett Reese, finding serendipity in the notion that her Grandmother’s favorite actors of all time were Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer. “No one can tell me it’s not real!” She asserts. 

Bridgett Reese, the granddaughter of Clyburn matriarch Stacy Clyburn (played by Michelle Pfeiffer), is written, initially, to be the archetypal, 21st-century, American screenager: stubborn, defiant, naively self-assured. But placed within the larger storyline of a family battling to find each other amidst loss and grief, Miller is careful in how she vivifies Bridgett. She recognizes what Bridgett stands for—Gen Z personified—but chooses to layer in her own vulnerabilities, giving Bridgett’s more nuanced traits a fighting chance to read as genuine emotional depth. And it works. “I remember being a teenager and experiencing my first life-altering loss, my first taste of grief. And it forces you to grow up a lot and realize what really matters. I was just sort of channeling that. It is such a specific feeling and emotion,” she tells me. 

For Miller, acting is less about performance than it is about retrieval. We talk about the dying art of collecting memories—an ill-fated hobby in today’s world compounded by the aforementioned online addiction our generation suffers from—and the practice of reviving them in service of the characters she takes on. “As an actress, it has to come from a real place. I have to source it from some sort of life experience. So, memories are everything to me. I can literally sit and daydream about things that have happened.” Because to forget, Miller admits, is what really “keeps her up at night.” 

It’s why, since 11 years old, Miller has kept a journal—recording everything from her time on set with Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes) or Sarah Paulson (Hold Your Breath) to quiet mornings in Montana or slow evenings in Los Angeles with Nova, her Lynx Point Siamese cat named after her character in Planet of the Apes. In recounting these experiences, Miller looks back fondly on these “chapters.” “I am like a sponge when I go to work with these people. I just try to watch them and observe and absorb everything that is happening around me.” 

Journaling, much like daydreaming, has allowed her to stay attuned to the environments around her. Her inner thoughts and feelings, written down, become archival memories for the many selves Amiah Miller contains; adaptable for character development. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly for an actress fascinated by preserving memories and emotional retrieval, Miller shares the fun she has in exploring the identities that exist within her repository. “There’s Mia and then there’s Gia,” Miller starts.  “Mia is more like an outdoor [girl]. That’s like my horse girl [alter-ego]. She’s a tomboy. She’s got spurs on her red boots.” The parallels between Mia and Bridgett’s character in later episodes—who finds herself leaning into the rugged charm of Montana—start to reveal themselves. “It was a beautiful thing because I was falling in love with Montana as Bridgett was.” Miller also admits that she’s picked up horseback riding while filming for The Madison. “I’m a full horse-girl now,” says Miller. 

“Gia is when I am out with my friends. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, my name’s Gia,’” Miller delivers with a bit of feist. I tell Miller that I believe it’s really important for each of us to find our Gias because, well, they’re fun and not too serious, to which she adds, “It’s so fun. Sometimes Gia has a southern accent.”

More importantly, outlets like journaling, daydreaming, and manifesting have all functioned as tools of self-preservation for Miller, rituals that keep her from abandoning her inner self. She treats these collected memories inscribed on paper like something living, ideas that require protection, care, and daily consideration. It’s after the long days of filming or busy press tours when Miller returns home that she’s reminded why these forms of self-nurturing matter.  “When I go home from filming, it’s just me. I need to be kind to myself and be my own best friend,” says Miller. “I have a picture where I am three [years old] in it. It’s my school picture, and I hang it up with me everywhere I go because I do this for her. She would be so proud. She would think I’m so cool. And I remind myself of that. We all have this inner child that we just have to take care of.” I follow with “and who we are making memories for.” Miller smiles knowingly, “Exactly.” 

Near the end of our conversation, I ask Miller what’s next. She quips that after having played more of these “heavier, intense characters and roles… a comedy would be nice. Something a little light-hearted, like a rom-com. That is what we are currently manifesting.” She pauses, poised and confident, and shares, “I feel like a tumbleweed in the wind. Just seeing where life takes me. Going with the flow.”

It sounds casual at first. But the longer we talk, the more this fortuitous nature reads as the intentional relaxation of someone who trusts their own fate. A self-trust rooted in the conscious effort to preserve memories and ideas she fears could disappear if not protected. “[I am] being present and just seeing what happens,” Miller continues. “Because I think that’s when the magic happens.” 

Photographed by David Bellemere

Styled by Christopher Campbell

Written by Ava Violet Finn

Hair: Clayton Hawkins at A-Frame Agency

Makeup: Rachel Goodwin at A-Frame Agency

Producer: Erik Christensen

Styling Assistant: Yasmeen Roundtree

Special thanks to MCM Creative