Meet Billie Piper: charming, thoughtful and her own hardest critic

By Barry Garron

Starting tonight, America will get better acquainted with Billie Piper, 25, who plays the lead in Showtime's "Secret Diary of a Call Girl."

She's well-known in the U.K., where she filmed her first TV commercial, for a breakfast cereal, at age 7. When she was 15, her first single, "Because We Want To," debuted at No. 1 in the U.K.; she was the youngest person ever to accomplish that feat. She's been married (to BBC DJ Chris Evans) and divorced and remarried (to actor Laurence Fox) and is pregnant with their first child.

Still, if American viewers know Piper at all, it is from her two seasons on "Doctor Who," where she played Rose Tyler, the doctor's assistant.

Offscreen, what is she like? As the picture shows, she's quite photogenic. In addition, based on my 17-minute conversation, I conclude she is well-spoken, unguarded, refreshingly candid, relaxed, friendly and, really, quite charming.

It's a given that stars of a new series must spend hours on end answering all kinds of questions from perfect strangers about themselves and their show. I don't know how many of the questions I asked had been posed dozens of times before, but she answered each one graciously, thoughtfully and fully. Even those that were a little delicate.

I asked Piper if she could imagine herself in real life as a call girl and whether the intimate scenes were difficult to play. She replied: "Not so much the kind of clumsy, awkward sex. It's funny how you can disconnect from that. The more kind of intimate, emotional sex scenes are always really tricky. I did find that quite hard.

"It's funny because even though we're acting and there's no genuine sex going on, when people say to me, 'Do you think you're advocating prostitution?' I just think, 'Well, no, because if prostitution was all sweet and easy and a perfect profession, then everyone would be doing it.' But it's not. It's really, really hard. And having pretended to do these sex scenes, I could never imagine myself really doing it."

You might think anyone who looked like Piper would enjoy watching themselves. You'd be wrong, though. She is hypercritical of her work.

"I hate watching myself and I hate watching things that I do (alongside) my loved ones. Just for fear that they will tell me I'm shit and I have to rethink everything." She doesn't want her husband to see her in "Secret Diary" but knows he recorded some episodes. "And then he'll watch them on the sly, but I always catch him out. I get really upset if he turns them on. I just can't relax. It's not something I can recover from easily. I keep thinking I should have done that much better. It's wrong. It's really stupid."

Piper is in the midst of shooting a second season of "Secret Diary" and has committed to a third, as well. Showtime has rights to all three seasons. The series is worth checking out either on Showtime or on the DVD set that inevitably will be issued. In the future, expect to see more of Piper, if that's possible.

Comments

[Joe Bua]

I am SOOOOOO Jealous!!!

Why don't I get to meet Billie, I mean Rose, I mean Belle, I mean Hannah ... oh, I see why now, I'm having trouble separating "real" from that box that all my furniture faces.

AGAIN.

Sorry, carry on.

I've seen series one, it's very good, not heavy handed or a morality lesson, just a peek inside something in which we're all somewhat interested.

[missy]

At least she admits that prostitution is a drag.

"...if prostitution was all sweet and easy and a perfect profession, then everyone would be doing it.' But it's not. It's really, really hard."

Your damn right prostitution is hard. It destroys women. You can't keep renting your body to strangers without suffering psychological and physical damage.

This show is downright dangerous to young women who are going to see it and think this lifestyle is actually possible. It's not.

Nobody does this work long without drugs to numb to horrorible stuff you see and do. Drugs eventually take their toll. The money gets less with every wrinkle and ounce of cellulite. Every girl thinks she's gonna get out and then realizes that her past will follow her wherever she goes. After the initial rush, it's a downward spiral.

Where's the Showtime series about the 35 year old who can't get the big bucks anymore, has to have constant plastic surgery and botox in painful places, has to deal with anal warts and dropping boobs, has to deal with a nasty drug habit that started that one night when she agreed to do something she now really regrets and there were cameras and she lives every day scared to death her parents and grandparents and little brother will see that video one day.

Prostitution sucks. This show sucks just as hard for trying to glamorize the practice of men renting women to ejaculate in them. It's just not that glamorous.