Jonny Lee Miller says new job as volunteer fireman sparked by 'midlife crisis'
PHOTO: Instagram/Jonny Lee Miller
PUBLISHED ONAugust 14, 2023 6:42 AM
Jonny Lee Miller says his new job as a volunteer fireman was sparked by another of his "succession" of midlife crises.
The Trainspotting actor, 51, has just completed five months' training as a volunteer fireman in Suffolk County, Long Island, where he has a small home, and said the training was obviously a symptom of him battling with the realities of ageing.
He told the Daily Telegraph: "I think I've had a succession of different midlife crises. But, crawling blindfold through the mazes at Suffolk County Fire Academy — if that's not a midlife crisis, then what is?"
Jonny, who was married to Angelina Jolie, 48, from 1998 to 2000, added he has also been facing the reality that women no longer look at him like they used to.
He said: "You know what it's like — you'd better face up to it and meet that head on. The opposite sex don't look at you the same way they used to, and all that kind of stuff.
"I've seen people close to me not face up to it, and it will eat you up."
Jonny is currently based in London after taking a role in Sam Holcroft's new play A Mirror at the Almeida Theatre in the north of the capital, but says it is getting in the way of his fireman duties.
He added: "This (theatre) job is f****** up my first summer as an on-call firefighter.
"The bell goes off, your pager goes off, the volunteers show up — pretty much like the lifeboats (in the UK.)
"And they'll accept old people like me. I'm too old to do it full time, but this way you can be of service to your community, and, you know, live out your dream of being a firefighter when your life went completely the other way, without giving up your job."
Dad-of-one Jonny, who has son Buster, 14, with his second wife, US model Michele Hicks, 50, added: "I'd always dreamt of being a fireman… I went to my first fire recently, a few days before I came out here, and it was just the most amazing feeling, because you stopped somebody's house burning to the ground."