BILLIE PIPER: The Hollywood Interview

Billie Piper Returns to America (and this time we might actually be ready for her.)
By Terry Keefe
[Note: This article is appearing in this month's issue of Venice Magazine.]

Once upon a time, back in the late 90s, there breathed a beautiful teenage queen of the pop charts who could dance up a storm and create hysteria in her millions of fans. In the United States, you’d be correct in assuming that we’re talking about someone with the first name of Britney. But on the other side of the pond, Billie Piper also reigned in the pop kingdom. She was big in the UK. We’re talking near-Spice Girls big. Three number one singles. The first single, “Because We Want To,” gave her the distinction of being the youngest artist to debut at the top spot of the British charts. Considerable efforts were also made to break Billie Piper as a pop artist here in the U.S., and her videos did get airplay on MTV, and particularly on MuchMusic. But the ground had become over saturated for her type of material by decade’s end, and she never became the musical household name here that she was at home. That was probably not the end of the world, in Billie Piper’s eyes, because, as she has stated numerous times in recent years, all she ever really wanted to do, anyway, was act. Piper had been plucked from acting school as a teenager and given the opportunity to become a major pop star, which she understandably embraced, but it was a somewhat roundabout way to where she wanted to be all along: in front of the cameras but without the backup dancers.


In 2003, Piper made the decision to once again pursue acting full-force, and reintroduced herself to British audiences, with no dance moves this time, in the BBC series “The Canterbury Tales,” as well as roles in period films such as “Mansfield Park.” Two years later, in 2005, her casting as the spunky Rose Tyler in the wildly successful revival of “Doctor Who” solidified her cross-over as a star actress at home, and truly introduced her for the first time to many American viewers of the show, who embraced the new series and made it a hit over here as well. It was then in 2007 that Piper took on the series role which probably came as more of a shock to the British fans who had sort of grown up with her - as the lead character of Belle, known to her friends and family as Hannah, in “Secret Diary of a Call Girl.” The show is loosely based on books written by a real-life, high-class prostitute, known only as Belle de Jour. (Showtime subsequently picked the series up for distribution in the States, and the second season is just now debuting here.) The first season was largely constructed around showing “how the gig works,” with almost every episode featuring a different type of sex that Belle is hired for: a menage a trois, an S&M encounter, a sex party, and the “Girlfriend Experience,” in which the client wishes her to pretend that they’re a normal couple, complete with holding hands, cuddling, and ordering out for Chinese. Although Season One was heavy on the sex and nudity, Season Two has cut back, somewhat, on those elements to focus more on Hannah’s attempts to balance her two lives, and that has been a blessing for the series, although I’m sure there will be those who will disagree (and for you, there is always Cinemax). Hannah falls in love for the first time in quite a while with an Irish doctor named Alex (Callum Blue), who is not aware for a long while as to how she makes a living. She also finds that her best friend and childhood sweetheart Ben (Iddo Goldberg) is still quite romantically protective of her, creating a triangle of sorts. And she reluctantly takes under her wing a ditsy young call girl wannabe named Bambi (Ashley Madekwe), who provides Hannah with an uncomfortable mirror into her own persona at times. What has emerged this season is a show with strong elements of romantic comedy and farce, which still keeps its provocative elements by the very nature of its subject matter. You know that Hannah likely can’t have it all, not the way she wants to at least, and that attempting to balance her job and any type of meaningful relationships is likely to end in disaster. The character is like watching a very slow train wreck that you hope somehow manages to right itself before impact, and Piper is charming, sexy, and sometimes tragic, all at once.

I just watched the full first season of “Secret Diary,” and they gave me the first four episodes of the second season. From what I’ve seen, the series seems to be concentrating more on her relationships outside of the call girl job, and less on the sex-capades.

Billie Piper: Yeah, that’s exactly right. She’s got a dual life. She plays a character when she's a part of her intimate adventures. But when she's at home alone, she's Hannah. Herself. And this year, the biggest change is that she falls in love, for the first time in a long time. And it's also the first time she really questions her choice of profession, because she's trying to marry these two worlds, and failing. And there are often head-on collisions between the two. You know, prostitution isn't really conducive to a happy relationship. Surprise, surprise! [laughs] So, it's more complex this year, and there's a lot more tale, and story, than the other year, and it's less about her profession.

Is that direction something you’re happy about?

I am. It was nice to kind of explore the character, other than just taking my clothes off all the time. And also, I think it's really interesting to get the other side of the story, because I think it's interesting to know how one lives with that vocation, and not letting anybody else know, and what that does to them mentally, and why they make the choices that they do. So, I think it's a part of her story that was worth exploring in greater detail.

The way the show is going now reminded me of a quote from Paul Thomas Anderson about shooting Boogie Nights, and I’m paraphrasing, but he wanted to put a scene of them shooting the porn early on in the film, so he could sort of get it out of the way, to show the mechanics of how it‘s shot, and then concentrate on the characters from there.

Yeah, that’s great! It's…kind of, in a way, the sex is the least interesting thing. You know, sex is sex, and at the end of the day, what's more interesting is the exchange that comes before, and post-sex, you know, because it's just...sex. I mean, it's interesting to see what people want, and what turns people on, and all of those things, but you kind of just want to know about the person before and after. And what it takes to make someone want to pay a woman to have sex with them, and the reasoning behind it, so, it's a definitely good way to approach it, basically just setting it up, and then getting to know the people behind it.

(Piper, above, in a scene from Season One where she attends a rather wild party.)

How much involvement do you have with where the plot of the series goes?

This year, I'm executive producer on the show. And [laughs] I don't want to be this, you know, dominating force that kind of starts snapping my fingers, and demanding less nudity and…that's just an example, but at the moment we're talking about the stories, we're meeting with the writers, and talking, meeting up with escorts again to source new material, because there's only two books from the original, from Belle, and we want to incorporate other stories, because there's some fascinating stuff out there. And we always want it to be based on facts, so there's no fictitious element to the story. Everything that you see has actually happened.

Has it really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which makes it more compelling, you know? It's always more interesting when it's based on a true story. And then, we're meeting directors next week, so I love it. I love being involved, because I like being massively creative, and I know the show really well now, as well as anybody else, so it's a nice new role for me.

Did the life of the actual Belle go in the direction that it's going for your series character? Did she ever find love that you know of?
I think she had on-and-off relationships, but I think, you know, a common complaint when I've met the escorts is that they do find it incredibly hard to form relationships with men….general relationships. Because…either you lie to the guy you're seeing about what you do, or you confess, and run the risk of him going, “Well, I think it's over.” Or sometimes, he goes, “Okay, that's fine, I'm quite turned on by that.” And then, the girls don't like that, you know? “Why does what I do turn you on? I don't like that.” So, often, they're kind of quite lonely women, even though they have company of men all day long.

Have you kept in touch with Belle?
No, not really. We met her once. She's a helpful source, but she's very keen to keep her anonymity. And she doesn't do that for a living anymore, so she has to be really careful. I haven't seen her since we met.

Was she what you expected when you met her the first time?

Yeah, I think she writes her voice very….her writing is really brilliant. It's so good that, when I saw her, I thought that this was the image of her I had in my head. And when she was speaking, I thought, “Yeah, that's her!” She's very well-turned-out, and very smart, and, you know, you usually hear the horror stories about women who have no education and are drug-addicted and are sex-trafficked---so it's interesting to see a woman like her who has a degree in all of these things, and is very well cultured, and well read, and also does this for a living. It's quite fascinating.

I do imagine you must have had some concerns that young women would think this is a great idea for a job though.

Yes.

The show made a joke about Pretty Woman in the first season, which I felt was long overdue in the media. Now, there is a movie which has likely helped inspire a few young women to take up prostitution.

Really?! Oh no. Unbelievable.

Yeah, Pretty Woman has come up by name in a few articles I’ve read about prostitution, specifically in Los Angeles. It’s the fantasy version of what things are really like. So, I thought it was a great knowing reference when you’re proposing a friendship with one of the other prostitutes, and she asks you, and I’m paraphrasing, “We're not going to watch Pretty Woman, are we?" and you're like, “No!”

Yeah, yeah...I know, that's weird, isn't it? The thing is, what I learned about it, is it is a really hard job to do, and the thing that all these women possess is this ability to emotionally disconnect, and I don't have that, and you don't have that, and my friends don't have that, so you can't just go and do that job without possessing that quality, or whatever you want to call it. You know, I'm sure it looks easier than it actually is. Really, you're handing over your body to another person, and as much as you may think you’re in control--- So when people say to me, “Are you scared that you're advocating prostitution?”, it's…well, it was that easy, I think we'd all be doing it.

I don't think the show advocates prostitution at all, by the way.

No, not you, but I've often had that criticism. And I kind of think, I mean, I'm only acting the sex, but at the time I was thinking, “I couldn't do this.” I just couldn't. It would ruin me as a person. But these women have this thing, that it doesn't affect them. And that doesn't make them less...it doesn't make them failed human beings. It's just that we're all very different, and some things affect us differently.

I like that you’ve added the character of Bambi this season as a sort of reflection of your character, but younger and more wild.

Yeah, and it's good to see the different extremes of these girls' natures and what they're like. Bambi is really reckless and impressionable, you know, but refreshing, in a way. And Belle is slightly more jaded, in a way, and very controlling, and micromanages everything.

How involved was (series creator) Lucy Prebble with this season?
She wrote the first two episodes of the second season. And then she went on to do other things, because we had to split up the show when I got pregnant, and so, time and prior commitments meant that we couldn't make it work together. But I still see her, and she's a really amazing girl, and very talented writer. She's only about twenty-seven!

Really? And she wrote a lot of the first season, right?

She wrote pretty much all of the first season, and was like the head writer, so she kind of oversaw the entire project.

How many different directors do you typically work with in a season?

Two directors. The first director will do four episodes. The first block is four episodes, and then the director will change.

Do you find the show changes significantly with a different director?

I do. It may look differently, but it ends up having the same feeling about it. Different directors approach the sex differently, and others, you know, are more keen to kind of make more of the domestic side of things, so it does alter, yeah, according to who's directing. But, you know, there is a general kind of continuity to the whole purpose. It's nice to have a change, I think. It's too much work for one director.

You and Iddo Goldberg, who plays your best friend Ben, have a strong unspoken chemistry between you. I really believe that you’ve known each other since childhood.

Yeah, we just got on really well. I mean, Iddo and I have a similar sense of humor. We bonded really intensely pretty much straightaway. And so, yeah, it wasn't forced. And, you know, I was with him while he was auditioning, and they kind of whittled it down to a few guys, and then I went and read with those few guys, and he was the right man for the job.

(Iddo Goldberg, who plays the long-suffering best friend to Piper's Hannah, above.)

You came to the show as a name actress. Did you have the power to say, “These are the ground rules in terms of what I’m willing to do, or not do?”
Not at that stage, and also, it was being…I thought it was being handled very well. And, even though I've done a few jobs, I'm still relatively new at this. And, I think one of the reasons they made it work so well is because I had no, kind of, rules. It's a really…it's not the kind of role where you can kind of set out limits. You can't suddenly go, “I'm not going to do this-this-this - I won't be naked - I won't do the sex - you'll have to use someone else” - because I'm playing a prostitute. And that would just make everybody's life really hard. I was very up for it, which was a relief to them, I'm sure.

You must have had real faith in the creative talents of the writers and producers though, because there's a fine line between art and exploitation.

Well, most of them are women, as well. We’ve had one female director, so it's very female. So it never feels like it's going to get gratuitous, or nasty, or, you know, blokey. It comes from women, so I was in good company.

I’ve never heard that term “blokey” before. That’s funny.
“Blokey,” yeah [laughs]. There’s very little testosterone on the set.

Was there any point that you became more comfortable with doing the sex scenes?

Yeah, you get…well, we were doing one a day, and they just become part of the job, you know? It becomes very…it's like a dance, it's like learning a dance. It's very choreographed. You talk it through to the point where it would almost feel false, you know, on a stage. But then, when the cameras are rolling, you can just go for it. You really want to go for it, and nail it the first time, so you don't have to keep repeating it [laughs]. And by the end, we all managed to hit the nail. And it worked out, and it was pretty pain-free. You know, obviously there are days when you're just like, “Oh, god, I just don't want to be that close to someone else!" Do you know what I mean? But it's only eight weeks. And the other actors are very sweet, and very gentle, and just as nervous, you know, because they're only coming in for one day! And I'm there for the duration, so I'm at home with the crew and everything, and they've seen me in underwear for weeks. And the other actors come in and they have to be starkers on the first day! So it's really hard for them, so I have to be very patient and giving and compassionate.

I hate asking you about that, for the record.

That's okay! I don't mind [laughs]. That's the show.

Cool. And so, Hannah is starting to write herself now at the end of the season, like the real Belle.
Yeah, she's becoming the real woman. And it's funny also because she kind of gets writer's block, and I'd say she has to keep doing the work to feel the writing, and also she's obviously trying to top what she's written before…which means that her sexual encounters become more radical and out there.

Oh, god!
Yeah [laughs]. That’s more in the third season, which we're about to shoot. But at the end of Season Two, we see her as an established writer.

Have you read the scripts for the third season?
Well, we're developing them now, and it's very funny….her approach to writing. She kind of realizes that some of her afternoons spent with men are actually quite mundane and quite boring, and that's not really material for her new book. So she starts lying about what they've done. And then, she does start just going to town, and just, you know, cranking it up a notch, and going full-out. And forcing men to do things that they hadn't even imagined. Suggesting things, actually. “Should we try this? Should we try that?" and he's like, “No, I just want missionary position.” Yeah, so you're basically frightening off her shy clients, and it gets really funny.

And how does her search for love go?
It changes, and something new happens with a guy, and it's very different to her relationship with Alex. She's suddenly…she finds herself really out of her depth. But Season Two is all about her quest -- well, not really her quest for love, because it just comes, and it's really unexpected and not really something she really wants to get into, so it's desperately sad, and it's interesting to see which way she goes.

I wanted to talk about your music career a bit. I remember the first time I saw you, I was in Dublin, about 11 years ago, for a film festival, and there was this music video which was on every television station. Endlessly.
Oh my god [laughs].

And it was something when you were dancing around a pool table.

I was always dancing around something! If it wasn't a skateboard park, it was a pool table, and that was my second single [laughs]. Yeah, it's called "Girlfriend.” It was me and some other girls, and then the guys playing pool. I was really young. I was like fifteen, or something.




(Piper as a teenager, above, on the cover of her single for "Girlfriend," when her stage name was simply "Billie.")

Your initial goal was to be an actress, and the music producers discovered you at your acting school, I believe?

Yeah, and I liked singing, but I never thought I had the strongest vocals. And so, I was kind of reluctant, but you're offered that opportunity at fourteen -

Of course you take it.

And you're like, “What? I don't have to go to school anymore. Yeah!” [laughs] And I also got to work, and I was just desperate to work as a child. I mean, I was freakishly ambitious, and that's kind of calmed down now. I still have ambitions, but they've slightly changed. I'm happy as an actor. I much prefer that.

It’s always hard to make the jump from one medium to another, in the public’s mind. Was it “Doctor Who” that made people start taking you more seriously as an actress?

Yeah, I think so, I think so. Because I'd done a few things, like I did “Canterbury Tales," but “Doctor Who”---the part was written so well that it gave me a great opportunity to really kind of showcase what I had, and I know that people liked it, and so that was that was the one that got me started, really.


(Piper and Christopher Eccleston as the good Doctor in "Doctor Who.")

That must have been very satisfying, because you knew you had the ability as an actor, but people sometimes have a hard time perceiving a performer as more than one thing.
Mostly you're having to prove so many things to people, like “I am passionate about it. You can rely on me, and I think I'm good at what I do. You may have a different opinion, and that's fine, you're entitled to it.” But, you know, it's just like, it's hard for people to get their heads around the idea that one actually wants to do more than one thing in life [laughs]. And then, you know, some people in the U.K. have a problem with this show [“Secret Diary"], because they were used to seeing me as a family entertainer, or in period dramas, and then they had to kind of get used to the fact that this is the new thing, and this is the new part that I'm going to play, and, you know, I'm jumping ship again [laughs].

In “Doctor Who,” you were the lead in many ways. Because the story is sort of seen through her eyes. And she's the one that changes the most, at least in the beginning.

Yeah, and it's kind of, like you say, she's all the children, basically. She's the one showing the kids what Doctor Who is like. She's human - he's an alien, a Time Lord, and she makes the kids think that they could be there. Because she's sort of the domestic side of sci-fi, you know?

I never really watched the earlier series of “Doctor Who” growing up, although I remember it was always on around midnight in the States. Did you watch it growing up in England?

Oh, I had to have. And I remember it being on, because the theme tune is really spooky.

You’re right. That song is what I remember most too.
Yeah, it's really creepy [laughs]. And it was always on, but I would never really settle down to it. It was just never my thing. But you knew it. If you were English, British, you know “Doctor Who.” But I had no idea what I was getting into. And, you know, I'm still not that up on my sci-fi knowledge. Lots of Whovians get really upset because I'm not really…I find it hard to kind of keep it all in my head [laughs].

You can't keep all that stuff in your head!

I know, but some of these guys really can. They have this brain capacity. I spoke to the new guy, Matt Smith, who's playing the Doctor in the new series. He called me, “What am I going to do?” It's really hard. It's just, your life completely changes, and it's such a huge show, especially in our country. It's about the biggest show on TV. And it's frightening, you know, being in that type of production, and having people suddenly know everything about you. He's just about to embark on that.

And what are you planning on doing next?

Well, we're just doing Season Three in the UK. And then, I'm going to just take some time to maybe look at some films. I just got an agent here.

Congratulations on that. You were known over here as a pop star, but not on the same level of fame as you were at home. But then, television audiences in the United States, seeing you for perhaps the first time, are introduced to you without preconceptions.

Which is great. It's easier, yeah. Because I don't come with all this baggage. And people just go, “Oh, there's this new actress, and she's doing this…,” and I find people embrace change here more than they do at home anyway.

Is that right?
Yeah, like, when you look at all the singers and actors and working people in the U.S., you know, they do more than one thing. They've got this brand, and that brand….

In America, it’s sort of considered a given that you’re going to be juggling a bunch of different things in the air, particularly when you’re in the entertainment business. You don’t know which one will break, so you try a bunch of routes.

It's amazing, and it's inspiring, and it's the way life should be. But in the UK, people get very upset if you try and do more than one thing. It's like, “Oh, you smug bastard.” [laughs] And so people don't really like that, so here, it gives me an opportunity to kind of do whatever I want to do.