BEING BILLIE Actor Billie Piper on finding happiness, life in lockdown and her new film, Rare Beasts
FROM TEEN SINGER TO SUPERSTAR ACTOR, TWO DECADES IN THE PUBLIC EYE HAVE TAUGHT BILLIE PIPER A LOT. AS SHE MAKES HER DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, ANNA BONET DISCOVERS A WOMAN WHO DOESN’T SHY AWAY FROM PAINFUL TRUTHS
Billie Piper may only be 38, but she has lived a more colourful life than most. Since she entered the spotlight as a 15-year-old popstar, she has had an illustrious career in both music and acting, become a mother-of-three, been through two divorces and won so many awards that the list has its own Wikipedia page. So, I am interested to know what all these experiences have taught her about happiness. When I pose the question, Piper gazes away pensively, before meeting my eyes again and responding: ‘That it’s fleeting.’ It’s a confronting answer, but Piper isn’t interested in sugar-coating things. What she offers is raw and unfiltered, and this extends from our interview right through to her recent work. You might associate Piper with Rose Tyler, David Tennant’s companion in BBC One’s Doctor Who, a breakout role so successful that she still has a cult following 16 years later. Or perhaps with escort Belle de Jour in 2007’s hit ITV drama Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. But lately, Piper’s been pouring her unflinching honesty into stories of her own. First came 2020’s I Hate Suzie, an eight-part drama for Sky Atlantic, which she co-created with her close friend and screenwriter Lucy Prebble. Piper played the eponymous Suzie, an actor whose life unravels at breakneck speed when intimate photos are shared online. Its storyline, Piper says, meant it proved difficult to get off the ground. ‘Not many people wanted it, because they felt they’d filled their quota for “women having a breakdown”,’ she explains, rolling her eyes as she speaks. And yet the series was met with multiple five-star reviews; her performance hailed by critics as ‘outstanding’. Next is the film Rare Beasts, a fierce anti romcom about a career-driven single mother, Mandy, whose deep desire to be in a relationship means she settles for a man (Leo Bill) who is pretty awful. Piper has written and directed the film and stars as its lead; it’s the reason for us coming together over Zoom today. She’s speaking to me from her musician boyfriend Johnny Lloyd’s studio in the home they share; make-up free, with her bleach-blonde hair secured with a scrunchie on top of her head. When I mention how much I enjoyed the film, and that it’s the kind of story that crawls under your skin, she beams. It’s clear this project means a lot to her. Piper started writing the film seven years ago, she explains, in response to the immense pressure that surrounded her in her early 30s. ‘Something I saw happening was women struggling under the “have it all” culture, which I think is quite an unhelpful message,’ she says. ‘I saw peers and read about women having ambitions, having children, navigating relationships, navigating modern feminism, and it all culminating in a bit of a mental-health crisis. It was filling my ears and my mind and my spirit.’
It compelled her to start writing about Mandy, who finds herself in the arms of a volatile man because she’s crumbling under this very stress. Cynical and a proud nihilist, Mandy, like Suzie, is part of a burgeoning landscape of messy female characters taking centre-stage in provocative new shows. Piper credits fellow female creatives Michaela Coel, Phoebe Waller-bridge and Lena Dunham for ‘setting the tone’. ‘It’s really exciting because it feels honest,’ she says of this new dawn for women on screen. ‘I’ve always tried to look for that [honesty] in the work I do and I haven’t found it often.’
As a first-time director, Piper felt ‘creatively at home’, but she was also pregnant with her daughter Tallulah, now two, during filming, which I suggest must have been demanding. She shakes her head. ‘I actually think [pregnancy] made the experience easier,’ she says. ‘Everyone had a lot of patience for me as a first-time director, but also as a pregnant woman. So I feel like Tallulah was a force field for me.’ She grins, before adding, ‘Maybe when I direct something else, it won’t be like that because I won’t have the protection of being “with child”. I’ll realise that, actually, everyone’s a b*stard and I hate directing!’ She lets out a loud chuckle.
‘I’M REALLY JUST DRIVEN BY CURIOSITY AND RESTLESSNESS’
Piper has certainly been bold in her choices as director: the storytelling isn’t linear, the camera movements can be dizzying and the characters are ‘end-of-the-rope versions of themselves’. ‘During the filming and even the writing – when it’s really for yourself and your friends – I had so much courage,’ she reflects. ‘I was wedded to this idea of creating a film that felt theatrical, like a big piece of choreography. So it’s immersive, it’s heightened, it feels like you yourself are experiencing that level of stress. Because in my early 30s, that’s how the world felt to me.’
More recently, though, self-doubt has been creeping in. ‘Now that it’s about to come out, I’m really nervous about having filmed it in that way.’ As an actor, Piper has ‘got over’ dealing with the reception of her work, but as a director, she’s back in what she calls the ‘please like me seat’. That’s only natural, I reason. ‘I do think you’re right,’ she muses. ‘Also, maybe it’s the reason why I like to vary the work and move around the industry. Because that beginning feeling is so unbelievably thrilling.’
‘Move around’ she certainly has. Before making the transition to screenwriter-director, Piper’s career had already gone through several iterations: from popstar to sci-fi heroine to stage sensation, the latter seeing her scoop all six of the Best Actress awards currently available in UK theatre for her performance in the 2017 production of Yerma at the Young Vic Theatre. ‘That really changed everything for me,’ she remembers.
Irrespective of her success, mixing things up is something Piper says she has always felt like she has had to do for herself. ‘I’m really just driven by curiosity, and a sense of restlessness,’ she says, though she admits it hasn’t always been easy. ‘I have met a struggle at every point when I have deviated professionally. And maybe on some level, I am addicted to that. Maybe I am attracted to that feeling of not being wanted, and then proving myself. There is a whole messed up thing going on in there.’
I laugh, but I suspect Piper’s drive has played a large part in carrying her through, too. Born in Swindon, her father was a builder, while her mother stayed home to look after Piper and her three younger siblings. It came as little surprise to them when their ‘freakishly ambitious’ child won a scholarship to the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London; the school’s former alumni also includes Keeley Hawes, Amy Winehouse and Emma Bunton.
Before long, Piper had appeared blowing bubble gum in a now-famous 1990s TV ad for Smash Hits magazine, which led to her being spotted and signed by a record label. By 14, she was living alone in a flat in London, while pursuing a career in music. Was she ever frightened, I wonder, living alone at such a young age? ‘No, I loved it,’ Piper enthuses. ‘Now, I feel so sorry for my 14-year-old self, but I remember at the time really enjoying that freedom.’
When her first single, the feelgood girl power anthem Because We Want To, was released in 1998, she became the youngest female artist (at 15) to enter at number one on the UK Singles Chart. Numerous top-five singles followed, as well as two double-platinum albums and four Smash Hits Awards, but Piper is all too aware that success at such a young age comes at a price. She has spoken openly in the past about her ensuing struggles with an eating disorder and contemplating taking her own life when she was 16, and she alludes to this now: ‘I’m alive to the fact it could have gone one of two ways, and almost did for a short time.’
I am curious as to how she feels that early experience shaped who she is today. Piper looks thoughtful. ‘I’m only coming to terms with that period of my life right now,’ she says slowly. ‘I think it’s probably done its fair share of damage, but I’m also very grateful for that period, because it set me up for doing what I’m doing now.’
It was during this time that Piper met her first husband, presenter Chris Evans. She was just 18 when they married (Evans was 35) and both the age gap and the pair’s antics – ‘I imagine it’s what your uni years feel like,’ Piper has recalled – regularly made headlines. While they separated amicably after three years of marriage, and later divorced, Piper doesn’t have any regrets.
‘My 20s were quite wild, and that was likely to be a reaction to [teenage years spent] working all the hours that God sent, being very performative and treated sort of like a flashy sales girl;
‘I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN BE HEALTHY AROUND LOVE’
a really young one,’ she observes. ‘I really needed to fall apart in that sort of reckless 20s way. To not care about looking put-together every waking moment of my life or saying the wrong things as a role model to children.’
At 24, Piper got married again, to actor Laurence Fox, with whom she has two sons, Winston, 12, and Eugene, eight. They too divorced in 2016. I am interested to know what the end of two marriages has taught her. Does she view them as learnings? ‘Absolutely,’ she nods. ‘It’s way healthier to see it as a journey to a better place.’
She’s introspective when it comes to how her teenage years affected her relationships. ‘I think a lot of my issues romantically have come from being on my own a lot when I was very young,’ she says. ‘So it’s sort of an extreme desire to feel loved and safe. I guess on some level it’s like abandonment issues – even though I wasn’t particularly abandoned; I lead myself largely – but I think that has affected relationships. I’ve [since] learned about attachment issues and co-dependency, which I never saw as a problem, until I did that work on myself.’
The work seems to have paid off. Piper has been in a relationship with former Tribes frontman Johnny Lloyd, who is also father to Tallulah, since 2017. When I ask how she knows this relationship is the right one, she considers her words. ‘Maybe there’s something to be said for knowing yourself more in your 30s, and meeting someone more suited to you,’ she says. ‘By then, you have a better idea of what you need, what you want, and what things you are willing to let go of.’
Is there anything she does to keep her relationship healthy? Piper laughs and shakes her head. ‘I really don’t know what the key is,’ she says. ‘Also, I think on some level, I’m always going to be interested in love in a way that throws logic to the floor. Part of me doesn’t ever just want to see it as this rational thing where I’m making sure I have date night on a Wednesday; although I think there are merits in doing that. But the thought immediately makes me feel a bit heavy-hearted and bored.’ She shrugs, then scrunches her nose. ‘I don’t know if I can ever really be fully practical and healthy around love.’
What Piper has realised now (‘and no one teaches you this growing up’) is that everyone has their own issues, and it’s not always your job to fix them. ‘What I’ve done solidly in my life is go, “Oh, you have this issue with me; that must be my fault, and so I’m going to try to mend that in your vision,”’ she winces.
With three children now at home, Piper admits that she copes ‘really badly’ with the juggling act. ‘There is no winning formula to this,’ she says. ‘ If I’m out of the house working for 14 hours a day, a lot of the time my children suffer. Am I at work feeling free to work? No, not at all.’
As if on cue, there’s the sound of children’s laughter in the background. We are in lockdown (again), and Piper is finding things increasingly difficult. ‘The first lockdown was just after filming I Hate Suzie, so I was desperate to be around my kids and do lovely domestic stuff,’ she says. But, this one is ‘really hard’, especially the home-schooling. ‘It’s the worst thing ever,’ she admits. ‘They hate it and behave like sh*ts because they can,’ she laughs, ‘Because, you know, it’s their mother teaching them! They shouldn’t see me in that role.’
Amid the chaos, Piper has found pockets of joy in walking, painting the house and eating
(‘I don’t think I’ve eaten with this freedom since I was, like, 10’). And as for her view on the fleeting nature of happiness, I suppose it is a reminder that life is full of light and shade. Piper nods at this remark. ‘I think dedicating your life to pursuing happiness is not that helpful and you’re likely to be disappointed a lot,’ she says. ‘It is fleeting, but when it’s happening, I like to be fully conscious of it and sit with it for as long as I can.’
As our time winds up, further thoughts about happiness tumble out of Piper: how you should never ‘force it’ and how ‘pretending to be happy is really damaging’. But also, how it doesn’t always come from the places you expect. ‘In the past, people would say, “Just go for a walk or look at the stream or watch the way the trees move,” and I was so judgemental of that advice.’ Piper smiles. ‘Now, I realise it really does the trick.’
Rare Beasts is in cinemas and On Demand from 7th May
‘PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY IS REALLY DAMAGING’