PIXIE’S RISQUE MOVE

Pixie Lott, stepping into Audrey Hepburn’s shoes as good-time girl Holly Golightly, tells Lisa Sewards why her stage version is racier than the film – and how her brother’s devastating illness drove her to success

Pop star Pixie Lott on stepping into Audrey Hepburn’s shoes for a raunchy new stage version of Breakfast At Tiffany’s

When Audrey Hepburn was cast as New York goodtime girl Holly Gol ight ly in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, the classic 1961 film of Truman Capote’s novel, the author was incensed. He’d wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part and the screenplay had been tailored for her, but she pulled out at the last minute when her acting coach told her that playing a woman of dubious morals could damage her career.

Audrey, of course, gave her most memorable film performance as the naive, eccentric socialite who falls in love with George Peppard’s struggling writer, while Marilyn went on to make the critical flop The Misfits, her final film. But now the West End stage has finally got its blonde Holly Golightly in the shape of pop star-cum-actress Pixie Lott, whose sex appeal and platinum locks are far more Marilyn than Audrey. ‘People say you can’t play Holly if you’ve got blonde hair,’ says Pixie. ‘But in the book she’s a blonde.’

This latest West End stage adaptation by American playwright Richard Greenberg is not based on the film but returns more faithfully to Capote’s original book. ‘ The book is set in the 40s, not the 50s like the Hepburn film,’ explains Pixie, 25. ‘It’s darker than the movie and talks more about sexuality so we’ve put that in the play.’

The story follows Holly’s stop-start romance with a wr i ter who’s moved in next door to her apartment. His real name is never revealed, but Holly gives him the name Fred. He’s already with a wealthy older woman, while Holly’s working as an escort and searching for a rich older husband.

One risque scene sees Pixie and her co- star Matt Barber, who played Lily James’s husband Atticus Aldridge in Downton Abbey and takes the role of Fred, share a bath. ‘It’s meant to look like we’re naked, but I’m not,’ laughs Pixie. ‘I wear a skin-tone stick- on bra, it’s sort of see-through and you can see my back which might give the illusion that I’m naked, but I’m actually not, thank the Lord. But there’s so much going on, I don’t have time to think, “Oh gosh, we’re taking our clothes off.” It’s so fast-paced and I have 26 costume changes.’

Not that Pixie’s any stranger to raunch. Today she’s a picture of sweet summer style in high-waisted denim shorts, a white crop top and copper-coloured sandals, but for the past two years she’s made the top 40 in FHM magazine’s 100 Sexiest Women poll, helped no doubt by videos such as the one for her hit Nasty in 2014 in which she wears knickers emblazoned with the song title and one for What Do You Take Me For in 2011 which sees her gyrating in a very short leather mini-skirt. ‘I think the What Do You Take Me For video is probably the raunchiest one I’ve done,’ she laughs.

The role of Holly Golightly is a brave one for any actress to take on – not least because of the Hepburn legacy, but also because the story’s had a chequered stage history. A 1966 musical starring Mary Tyler Moore managed only four previews on Broadway, and Anna Friel’s sexy take on Holly – playing one scene naked – in a 2009 West End version couldn’t save the production. A 2013 Broadway production of Richard Greenberg’s script with Game Of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke in the lead role ran for just 38 performances.

Pixie must have been daunted. ‘No I wasn’t,’ she insists, ‘as this version is completely different. I went to see Anna in the 2009 show and she was brilliant. She invited me up to her dressing room afterwards and we had a chat,’ recalls Pixie. ‘Back then I would never have dreamed I’d be doing this role now.’ But it’s a part she feels she was born to play. ‘I love Holly. I don’t know if I’ll ever find another role I feel so connected to,’ she says. ‘She’s lots of fun and is always throwing parties yet there are suitcases everywhere in her apartment. It’s in a mess because she always thinks she’s travelling on to the next thing. I’m like that, I never unpack my suitcases and my stuff’s all over the place – my house is crazy.’

The similarities don’t end there either. Like Holly, Pixie’s also forgetful and a terrible timekeeper. ‘A friend of mine calls it “island time”. She says, “Are you going to be on time or on island time?” Holly’s short-sighted too, like me. Her flat is number two like mine, and she lives next door to a Japanese man, so do I,’ adds Pixie breathlessly.

The new play reflects the bleaker themes of Capote’s original book in which Holly’s painful past is featured heavily – she was married at

13 to a vet in Texas, but left him for a new life in New York – and her beloved brother dies. Pixie herself has also experienced raw grief in her relatively short life. Not only did she lose both her grandmothers to dementia, but she also watched her brother Stephen battle a devastating illness that saw him confined to a wheelchair. ‘The only person Holly’s ever really loved is her brother Fred, and in the second half of the play he dies,’ says Pixie. ‘She’s had relationships with rich men but they don’t mean anything. She idolises her brother and the young writer is her only true friend. That’s why she calls him Fred, because he reminds her of her brother.

‘When Holly’s brother dies it’s so moving for me because I can understand how Holly feels. When Stephen was 12 and I was 11, he was diagnosed with Perthes disease, a crumbling of the bone in the hip, and they told him he’d never walk again. We had no idea it was going to be so serious. It was a really bad time in my life. Stephen and I are like twins and we did everything together. We still do. I remember sitting in the kitchen crying with my mum and my older sister CharlieAnn but we didn’t want Stephen to see us because it was important to be happy in front of him.

‘To see my mum so upset was devastating, but she never gave up. She wouldn’t take the first opinion and found the best doctor in the country. It was a miracle – he transformed Stephen. He had lots of operations and in one he was put in a cast from the waist down. But we made him a long skateboard so he could lie on it to get around. Then after having the operations and hydrotherapy, he made an amazing recovery and within two years he was walking again. He even ran the London Marathon in 2013, but he didn’t tell Mum as she’d have been so worried.

‘So when Fred dies in the play I put myself in that situation and think what would happen if Stephen died, which would be the worst thing in the world. Sometimes it really gets to me and I’m crying my eyes out on stage.’

She also had to watch both her beloved grandmothers succumb to Alzheimer’s within two years. Her maternal grandmother Amelia died in 2012, the same year her dad’s mum Peggy was diagnosed. She died in 2014. ‘Dementia is a horrible thing and losing my nannies is the saddest I’ve felt. My dad’s mum used to come to my shows and she encouraged me when I was little – she’d make me twirl in the living room.

‘She was a music lover and even towards the end she still had her radio playing next to her bed in the nursing home. It was amazing – she couldn’t really move but when we played her some music she still smiled. Music must have had some sort of emotional connection. So my life hasn’t been without pain.’

Born Victoria Louise Lott in Bromley, Kent, the youngest of three children, she was nicknamed Pixie because of her diminutive stature, but the name was clearly not going to fit a job in stockbroking like her father’s. None of her family was in showbusiness but Stephen’s condition inspired Pixie to start raising money for a Perthes charity by singing at local events. She may have been a gawky teenager but she was determined to be a pop star. ‘I had no doubt that was what I wanted to do,’ she says today. ‘And watching Stephen overcome something that could have changed his life for ever made me realise nothing is out of reach.’

When Pixie was 13 the family moved to Brentwood in Essex. She had already won a scholarship to the Italia Conti stage school and her first small role in the West End production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium. ‘I was a sewer kid so I only had two lines but it was a lot of fun,’ she says. ‘ It’s always been a dream to return to the West End. As for stage school, my parents said, “You can’t afford to go unless you get the scholarship.” Luckily I did and they were really supportive, but my dad was keen that I did the academic stuff too.’

He needn’t have worried as Pixie got straight As in her GCSEs. But her academic career took a back seat when she applied to a talent-seeking advert in the press at the age of 15, having to lie to say she met the minimum age requirement of 16. She ended up being signed by LA Reid, the American Idol judge and one of America’s biggest music producers. ‘I was flown to New York to work with a songwriter and we recorded a song called Jack. A record label heard it and loved it. But it wasn’t until I was 18 that my first single came out, so it felt like it took forever.’

That debut single, Mama Do, went to No 1 in 2009 and her first album Turn It Up made the top ten, followed by Young Foolish Happy in 2011 which made the top 20. Did starting so young mean she was just a puppet in the music industry? ‘As I’ve got older I do feel like I have more control. I’m more clear about what I want to do and I know how things work on a video shoot or a photo shoot because I’ve been doing it for so long.’

It’s no wonder she’s on Stevie Wonder’s speed dial and hangs out with Ed Sheeran and that Lionel Richie recorded a message to be played at her 21st birthday party: Happy Birthday to the tune of Easy, his hit with the Commodores. She also has a permanent place on fashion show front rows courtesy of her relationship with model Ol iver Cheshire. They met at a Vivienne Westwood party when she was 19 and he was 22 and now live together in east London.

‘ It’s good living together, but because we’ve always travelled around we’re used to not seeing each other for a while. Then when we do see each other it’s really nice. It’s been like that from the start – we’ve grown up together. We’re not thinking about marriage yet, we’re just really happy the way things are.’

In fact the only blot on Pixie’s landscape came in 2014 when, having been tipped to win Strictly Come Dancing, she was voted out at the quarter finals. Her routine with partner Trent Whiddon had too many illegal lifts for head judge Len Goodman’s liking. To singing, dancing and acting she can now add playing the guitar, having learned for Breakfast At Tiffany’s. The play’s three songs are all sung by Pixie, including Moon River, the Oscar-winning theme from the 1961 film.

But she’s not giving up on the pop charts yet. There’s a fourth album in the pipeline with a new single this summer called Good Thing Going. ‘It’s a summer track, really buzzing,’ she says. Just like Pixie herself.

‘It looks like I’m naked on stage but I’m actually not’

Pixie (left) and Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly