Billie Piper, 29, Set For Baby Boy No. 2
Actress and singer Billie Piper is expecting a baby boy, with her husband Laurence Fox, according to the UK's Sun newspaper. They already have a son together, three year-old Winston and after announcing the pregnancy in October last year (2011), they have now revealed the gender of their second child, who is due in April this year.Billie Piper lives in Easebourne, West Sussex, where she married Laurence Fox in 2007. She gave birth to their first child by caesarean section - following complications - in October 2008. Piper's marriage to Fox is her second; in 2001, she married the TV presenter and radio DJ Chris Evans, amidst much commentary in the media, owing to their sixteen year age gap. Piper and Evans separated in 2004 but remain friends. She met Laurence Fox in 2006, when they performed together in the stage play Treats.In 2012, Piper will appear in a five-episode TV drama for the Bbc entitled Love Life. The series will also star David Tennant, Vicky Mcclure, David Morrissey and Jane Horrocks. Filming for the show began in Margate, in 2011. Joining Piper in pregnancy-related announcements, Sienna Miller and Peaches Geldof have both also announced to the press in recent days that they are pregnant.
Billie Piper in baby boy joy
PREGNANT telly babe Billie Piper is expecting a baby BOY. The actress and her hubby Laurence Fox have been telling close pals how excited they are about having a brother for their three-year-old son Winston.A pal said: "They decided to find out the sex and it's a boy."They are delighted but just as happy as they would have been for a girl. They think it's great that Winston will have another boy to play with."Billie, 29, star of the raunchy TV drama Secret Diary of A Call Girl, is due in early spring.She and actor Laurence, who played DS James Hathaway in the TV detective series Lewis, married in 2007.
Not so permanent: Billie Piper's tattooed tribute to husband Laurence Fox
appears to be fading.
A tattoo is for life, not just for Christmas.Unless you've got a few spare pennies in the bank, that is, and can afford some expensive laser treatment.Despite going under the needle just six months ago, it seems Billie Piper is removing her romantic etching dedicated to husband Laurence Fox.In June, the former popstar had her other half's surname printed on the ring finger of her left hand in black capital letters.But last night, after emerging from the Almeida Theatre before heading home in a taxi, the 29-year-old beauty appears to be erasing the body art.However, in Reasons To Be Pretty, the production she is currently starring in, her character Carly is married and perhaps the tattoo has been covered with stage make-up to show authenticity for the role onstage.Billie first displayed the marking in June, while supporting former Doctor Who co-star David Tennant at his latest project Much Ado About Nothing.She also has had a tattoo on her arm since 2008, which reads ‘mr fox 31.12.07’, as a tribute to the date she tied the knot with the Lewis star.However, last year she appeared to regret her and her husband's identical markings, saying: 'It’s disgusting. We were in Mexico and both so drunk. 'I look at it and think, "God, that’s vulgar."'It is unlikely there is trouble in paradise, as the couple are expecting their second child in April, having released news of the pregnancy in October.The new addition to the family will be brother or sister to Winston, three.
Billie Piper needs a festive jumper to wear with her baby bump
Billie Piper covered up her growing baby bump with a baggy orange jumper as she left the Almeida Theatre in London last night. the yummy mummy was all wrapped up and gorgeous following her Reasons to be Pretty performance, pairing her jumper with some equally-bright jeans and white
Converse shoes as she headed home. Billie, who's married to Laurence Fox, is currently pregnant with baby no.2.
Converse shoes as she headed home. Billie, who's married to Laurence Fox, is currently pregnant with baby no.2.
Role play: Laurence Fox on being Mr Billie Piper
Sometimes I think they should teach psychoanalysis at journalism college; it would come in handy when interviewing someone like the actor Laurence Fox. Not that Fox is off his head – far from it – but there seems to me to be some interesting cross-currents swishing around his mental make-up.In passing, he mentions that he is newly claustrophobic, taking the stairs instead of the lift all the way to the top of ITV's South Bank offices, one of the tallest office blocks in London, and he keeps referring to himself as OCD – that's to say, suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder –although he's using the term conversationally and not clinically.He also chain-smokes Golden Virginia roll-ups ("It's not the nicotine; it's something to do with your hands", he says, "it's a nervous thing") and his body
is liberally adorned with tattoos – the significance of which is sometimes lost on him the morning after the night before.Fox at one point dismisses acting as "just a job", but then states that "I could give as good a Hamlet as any other fucker" (later on I get an inkling as to who these "fuckers" might be) before going on to call himself "self-deflating" and "my own worst enemy".It's this complexity that seems to have fed into his playing of DS Hathaway, the theologically-trained junior partner in ITV1's successful rebooting of the Inspector Morse franchise, Lewis. Indeed Fox's Hathaway is a large part of the
show's success – because after playing Watson to Morse's Sherlock Holmes for so long, viewers weren't going to buy it if Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whately) suddenly developed a mysterious past and a taste for Wagner.There's a suggestion that Hathaway might be gay and this may have something to do with his crisis of faith, although Fox fights the writers to retain Hathaway's mystique. "The minute they put anything in I just say I'm not playing it," he says. "They do enjoy gently plugging away at my sexuality as much as they can, but Kev's got a very good philosophy on this – he says when shows
start becoming about the main characters they vanish up their arses."We have adjourned for lunch to a pub near ITV's offices, Fox making an increasingly rare visit to London to promote a one-off ITV Christmas drama, Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me, in which he plays a luxury car salesman who is convicted of drink-driving and sees out his community service order with a club for kids with learning difficulties. "He's a bit of a tool," explains Fox, as the pub starts to fill up with the studio audience from Loose Women. "I think the analogy for his personality is that he's one of these people who would speak to Stephen Hawking ve-ry slow-ly."One of the children at the club turns out to be a bright teenager who has
been in foster care all his life, and now has a terminal heart defect – "and my character does what any normal idiot would do," says Fox. "He buys a fake mum, and a fake family and fake home to spend his last Christmas." It's a redemptive Christmas tale, in other words, with antecedents in Dickens and Frank Capra, but kept from mawkishness by un-ingratiating performances by Fox and newcomer Jack McMullen as Freddie. And for Fox, it's a welcome break from playing Hathaway, who Fox calls "old dead eyes". I wondered if he was tiring of the role. "I would jump ship if there wasn't other work," he says, "otherwise you just vanish into one character and it becomes really dull because that character inevitably becomes you after a while – glib and annoying in my case."This spurt of self-analysis brings me back to his earlier comment about acting being foremost "a job", an attitude I suspect stems from his background, of being brought up in an acting family – nay, dynasty. "Family of actors... a dynasty... I don't really know what it means," he says. "I suppose it's like coming from a family of undertakers."His uncle is Edward Fox, star of The Day of the Jackal and father of Silent
Witness leading lady Emilia Fox and up-and-coming talent Freddie Fox; his grandfather was the theatrical agent Robin Fox, while his grandmother was Angela Worthington, the actress of whom Noël Coward wrote the song, "Don't Put Your
Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington". His father, James Fox, once the rising star of Sixties cinema, was so shocked to find his name billed above Mick Jagger in the extraordinary 1970 movie Performance – and perhaps by the diabolical undertones of the film – that he joined a religious cult and disappeared from view for a decade. "He's still deeply in it," says Laurence Fox of his father's Christianity. "Thank God as well, because he's a warm-hearted fucker, my dad, and they're not all – the Foxes can be a cold bunch of bastards."Indeed there doesn't seem to be a great deal of brotherly love between James
and Edward, whose relationship Laurence once described as "two big egos in a room". "When you hear them on the phone they laugh, but we don't gather as a family," says Fox now. "We don't see them over Christmas, for example, and I just always wonder if there is anything between them." "We", by the way, includes his brothers Tom (a landscape gardener), Robin (a film producer) and Jack (an actor – like his only sister Lydia). Fox is the middle child.He was born in 1978, the year of his father's only movie during that decade – a film for the Billy Graham organisation – and grew up both teasing James about his faith and being teased about it. "We'd mock him," he says. "He's a good fun man to take the piss out of, especially his faith, because to properly take the piss out of someone you've got to go right to the core of him to the thing they
hold most valuable."I think that people thought that Dad was a monk for a while, and, yes [there was] mild teasing – but I'm undamaged and it's nothing like you get these days. Much worse if you're one of these super-injunction parents and their kids are reading all about it on the internet. How hard that must be?"His father's faith is now low-key ("You could probably go three or four months without the word 'God' coming from my dad's mouth; Mum would pray for a parking space"), but some of it must have got through because one of Fox's tattoos reads 'Psalm 139'. "It's an amazing piece of poetry, just stunning," he says. "I have tattoos everywhere now – whenever I get pissed near a tattoo parlour... they all mean so much when you get them done." Visibly inked on the inside of his lower arm is the inscription 'Mrs Fox 31.12.07', a tattoo made
"over a boozy lunch in Mexico" to mark the date of his marriage to Billie Piper, the nation's Belle du Jour, Doctor Who sweetheart and the former Mrs Chris Evans. Piper apparently has a matching tattoo. "The cheapest tattoo in the whole
world... not even straight, look how badly done that is."The couple met in 2006 while co-starring in the West End revival of
Christopher Hampton's Treats. "I literally knew within about five sentences," he says. "Just the way someone moves their hair, the way they speak, an inflection in their voice – it's not love at first sight, it's more if-I-can-do-this-I-can-do-it-with-you at first sight. I still feel exactly the same way today, which is lovely." And just in case that sounds too lovely, Fox adds: "She still irritates the fuck out of me sometimes." Like how? "Looking for her phone... stopping in the middle of the street when we're crossing the street and going 'Where's my phone?'. That sort of thing." And what irritates her about him? "I imagine I'm probably a difficult person to live with. I'm OCD – Winston's very OCD too, so she's got double trouble."Winston is their three-year-old son (Piper, who is currently impressing theatre reviewers in the Almeida production of Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Pretty, is four months pregnant with a second child) and the family all live in a country cottage in Midhurst, West Sussex, described by one visiting journalist as "more Withnail and I than Laura Ashley". "Yes, it is. If you have an open
fire everything's dusty all the time so what's the point?"He calls her "Bill" and she calls him "Lozza", and while "Bill" is away on the London stage, "Lozza" amuses himself. "I fish and ride and walk and drink a nice bottle of red wine and smoke fags by an open fire. I'm in bed by 10... it's pitch-black by five in winter and at half past seven you think, 'Wow, it's
late'. I've learnt that when you're not working, trying to be active about it doesn't help and makes you very stressed and anxious and you start blaming your agent, so I just try to slow it right down and the country helps me do that."And although Fox has finally watched his wife sporting an extensive lingerie collection in ITV2's hit drama Secret Diary of a Call Girl – something he resisted until recently – he still hasn't read Piper's very candid autobiography, Growing Pains. "I'm not instantly fascinated to be honest," he says, perhaps a little surprisingly. After all, who wouldn't be fascinated to read their wife's autobiography? "Another 25 years of never leaving the screen and I'll probably be in the autobiography club myself, but then I wouldn't remember anything anyway."Any biography of Laurence Fox would probably have to start with his unhappy time at Harrow, the public school where he was sent by his father, who had an equally unhappy time there. Perhaps it was revenge for all that mockery. "I'll probably be sending Winston there," jokes Fox.Raised to think for himself, he railed against the brutality of the fagging system, the unquestioning obedience and the snobbery. After an incident at a school dance (he claims to have forgotten the details) he was finally expelled, although allowed to take his A-levels as long as – rather sweetly – he spoke to nobody.His grades were good (Fox says he appreciates, at least, the education he received) but the school's report meant he didn't get a place at university, spending the next two years living at home in Wimbledon, working as a gardener and then in an office analysing seismological data, of all things, and taking very long lunch breaks. "I'd light a massive spliff as I went to the pub, drink two pints of Stella really quickly, read The Sun, go upstairs to the abandoned fourth floor and have a doze until the end of the day. It was heaven."Not so heavenly that he didn't realise that acting might have better prospects, although his first tilt at Rada ended in rejection, and his second attempt – successful this time – led to a not entirely happy stint at the drama school. If at Harrow he had suffered from snobs, at Rada he discovered the inverted variety. "It was never from people who'd worked hard and had come from little drama groups in Salford," he says. "It would be girls from Putney and stuff like that. I didn't have any middle-class friends at drama school."And all the way through I got deliberately niggled – and I think rightly – about whether I gave a shit or not. I remember having a lady teacher who said 'You shouldn't act... you definitely shouldn't act... I've watched you all this year and you've no access to your emotional life...'."By his final year he was annoying his teachers by accepting work – his first role, molesting a 15-year-old Keira Knightley in The Hole and getting narked when the film's director announced that Knightley was a star in the making "and I'm going 'Why aren't you telling me I'm going to be a star?'." A part in Robert Altman's Gosford Park followed, and then a whole succession of British and German soldiers, including one in ITV's Colditz, which got him noticed by Kevin Whately and cast in Lewis. Just in the nick of time because, as Fox puts it, he had been hitting his "self-destruct button" and getting a bit of a reputation for it. Where does the urge to self-destruct come from? "I think probably Harrow would do that to you," he says.Were his teachers at Rada right, I wonder? Does he maybe lack the ambition to go (as he once described Cate Blanchett) "gunning for an Oscar"? I quote back at him something he'd said about preferring to have a good time than be Daniel Day-Lewis. "I could do Daniel Day-Lewis's job as well as him," he replies. "Also I believe that Daniel Day-Lewis is a canny man. There are two main jobs in acting – the first one is to be a good actor and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor. I'm certainly not going to sit around and weep for missing out on Troilus and Cressida at half past seven on a Sunday evening – I'd rather be sitting there working out what the best way of catching a pike in a snaggy weir pool is. I think it's more healthy for me."Wife Billie Piper isn't, it seems, entirely sympathetic to Fox's self-estimation, and he tells me a story that ended with him describing a picture he'd seen as "ghastly". "Bill went, 'You think it's ghastly because you think you're better than everybody else'. And then I told this to my dad and my dad laughed so hard. My mum says it as well: 'You fucking Foxes... you all think you're so wonderful'; the irony is that we don't."He is resolute that he's not a star ("it's only Lewis"), but two things happen at the end of our lunch that suggest otherwise. First he tells me of being in Ibiza the previous weekend and watching the Vaccines in concert. "We went to the after-party and the lead singer came running over to me and said, 'I fucking love Hathaway'. And I was like, 'I think "Post Break-up Sex" is the best song I've ever heard'."The oldies love him too. As he's leaving the pub to have his photograph taken ("Be gentle with me," he says of our interview), the coach party from Derbyshire who'd been in the studio audience for Loose Women rise to cheer and say how much they love Lewis ("Better than Morse," says one, and I kind of agree). Left behind, I find his pouch of Golden Virginia on the floor – and one of the ladies whisks it away as a souvenir. Laurence Fox is a legend in his own lunchtime, at the very, very least.
is liberally adorned with tattoos – the significance of which is sometimes lost on him the morning after the night before.Fox at one point dismisses acting as "just a job", but then states that "I could give as good a Hamlet as any other fucker" (later on I get an inkling as to who these "fuckers" might be) before going on to call himself "self-deflating" and "my own worst enemy".It's this complexity that seems to have fed into his playing of DS Hathaway, the theologically-trained junior partner in ITV1's successful rebooting of the Inspector Morse franchise, Lewis. Indeed Fox's Hathaway is a large part of the
show's success – because after playing Watson to Morse's Sherlock Holmes for so long, viewers weren't going to buy it if Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whately) suddenly developed a mysterious past and a taste for Wagner.There's a suggestion that Hathaway might be gay and this may have something to do with his crisis of faith, although Fox fights the writers to retain Hathaway's mystique. "The minute they put anything in I just say I'm not playing it," he says. "They do enjoy gently plugging away at my sexuality as much as they can, but Kev's got a very good philosophy on this – he says when shows
start becoming about the main characters they vanish up their arses."We have adjourned for lunch to a pub near ITV's offices, Fox making an increasingly rare visit to London to promote a one-off ITV Christmas drama, Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me, in which he plays a luxury car salesman who is convicted of drink-driving and sees out his community service order with a club for kids with learning difficulties. "He's a bit of a tool," explains Fox, as the pub starts to fill up with the studio audience from Loose Women. "I think the analogy for his personality is that he's one of these people who would speak to Stephen Hawking ve-ry slow-ly."One of the children at the club turns out to be a bright teenager who has
been in foster care all his life, and now has a terminal heart defect – "and my character does what any normal idiot would do," says Fox. "He buys a fake mum, and a fake family and fake home to spend his last Christmas." It's a redemptive Christmas tale, in other words, with antecedents in Dickens and Frank Capra, but kept from mawkishness by un-ingratiating performances by Fox and newcomer Jack McMullen as Freddie. And for Fox, it's a welcome break from playing Hathaway, who Fox calls "old dead eyes". I wondered if he was tiring of the role. "I would jump ship if there wasn't other work," he says, "otherwise you just vanish into one character and it becomes really dull because that character inevitably becomes you after a while – glib and annoying in my case."This spurt of self-analysis brings me back to his earlier comment about acting being foremost "a job", an attitude I suspect stems from his background, of being brought up in an acting family – nay, dynasty. "Family of actors... a dynasty... I don't really know what it means," he says. "I suppose it's like coming from a family of undertakers."His uncle is Edward Fox, star of The Day of the Jackal and father of Silent
Witness leading lady Emilia Fox and up-and-coming talent Freddie Fox; his grandfather was the theatrical agent Robin Fox, while his grandmother was Angela Worthington, the actress of whom Noël Coward wrote the song, "Don't Put Your
Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington". His father, James Fox, once the rising star of Sixties cinema, was so shocked to find his name billed above Mick Jagger in the extraordinary 1970 movie Performance – and perhaps by the diabolical undertones of the film – that he joined a religious cult and disappeared from view for a decade. "He's still deeply in it," says Laurence Fox of his father's Christianity. "Thank God as well, because he's a warm-hearted fucker, my dad, and they're not all – the Foxes can be a cold bunch of bastards."Indeed there doesn't seem to be a great deal of brotherly love between James
and Edward, whose relationship Laurence once described as "two big egos in a room". "When you hear them on the phone they laugh, but we don't gather as a family," says Fox now. "We don't see them over Christmas, for example, and I just always wonder if there is anything between them." "We", by the way, includes his brothers Tom (a landscape gardener), Robin (a film producer) and Jack (an actor – like his only sister Lydia). Fox is the middle child.He was born in 1978, the year of his father's only movie during that decade – a film for the Billy Graham organisation – and grew up both teasing James about his faith and being teased about it. "We'd mock him," he says. "He's a good fun man to take the piss out of, especially his faith, because to properly take the piss out of someone you've got to go right to the core of him to the thing they
hold most valuable."I think that people thought that Dad was a monk for a while, and, yes [there was] mild teasing – but I'm undamaged and it's nothing like you get these days. Much worse if you're one of these super-injunction parents and their kids are reading all about it on the internet. How hard that must be?"His father's faith is now low-key ("You could probably go three or four months without the word 'God' coming from my dad's mouth; Mum would pray for a parking space"), but some of it must have got through because one of Fox's tattoos reads 'Psalm 139'. "It's an amazing piece of poetry, just stunning," he says. "I have tattoos everywhere now – whenever I get pissed near a tattoo parlour... they all mean so much when you get them done." Visibly inked on the inside of his lower arm is the inscription 'Mrs Fox 31.12.07', a tattoo made
"over a boozy lunch in Mexico" to mark the date of his marriage to Billie Piper, the nation's Belle du Jour, Doctor Who sweetheart and the former Mrs Chris Evans. Piper apparently has a matching tattoo. "The cheapest tattoo in the whole
world... not even straight, look how badly done that is."The couple met in 2006 while co-starring in the West End revival of
Christopher Hampton's Treats. "I literally knew within about five sentences," he says. "Just the way someone moves their hair, the way they speak, an inflection in their voice – it's not love at first sight, it's more if-I-can-do-this-I-can-do-it-with-you at first sight. I still feel exactly the same way today, which is lovely." And just in case that sounds too lovely, Fox adds: "She still irritates the fuck out of me sometimes." Like how? "Looking for her phone... stopping in the middle of the street when we're crossing the street and going 'Where's my phone?'. That sort of thing." And what irritates her about him? "I imagine I'm probably a difficult person to live with. I'm OCD – Winston's very OCD too, so she's got double trouble."Winston is their three-year-old son (Piper, who is currently impressing theatre reviewers in the Almeida production of Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Pretty, is four months pregnant with a second child) and the family all live in a country cottage in Midhurst, West Sussex, described by one visiting journalist as "more Withnail and I than Laura Ashley". "Yes, it is. If you have an open
fire everything's dusty all the time so what's the point?"He calls her "Bill" and she calls him "Lozza", and while "Bill" is away on the London stage, "Lozza" amuses himself. "I fish and ride and walk and drink a nice bottle of red wine and smoke fags by an open fire. I'm in bed by 10... it's pitch-black by five in winter and at half past seven you think, 'Wow, it's
late'. I've learnt that when you're not working, trying to be active about it doesn't help and makes you very stressed and anxious and you start blaming your agent, so I just try to slow it right down and the country helps me do that."And although Fox has finally watched his wife sporting an extensive lingerie collection in ITV2's hit drama Secret Diary of a Call Girl – something he resisted until recently – he still hasn't read Piper's very candid autobiography, Growing Pains. "I'm not instantly fascinated to be honest," he says, perhaps a little surprisingly. After all, who wouldn't be fascinated to read their wife's autobiography? "Another 25 years of never leaving the screen and I'll probably be in the autobiography club myself, but then I wouldn't remember anything anyway."Any biography of Laurence Fox would probably have to start with his unhappy time at Harrow, the public school where he was sent by his father, who had an equally unhappy time there. Perhaps it was revenge for all that mockery. "I'll probably be sending Winston there," jokes Fox.Raised to think for himself, he railed against the brutality of the fagging system, the unquestioning obedience and the snobbery. After an incident at a school dance (he claims to have forgotten the details) he was finally expelled, although allowed to take his A-levels as long as – rather sweetly – he spoke to nobody.His grades were good (Fox says he appreciates, at least, the education he received) but the school's report meant he didn't get a place at university, spending the next two years living at home in Wimbledon, working as a gardener and then in an office analysing seismological data, of all things, and taking very long lunch breaks. "I'd light a massive spliff as I went to the pub, drink two pints of Stella really quickly, read The Sun, go upstairs to the abandoned fourth floor and have a doze until the end of the day. It was heaven."Not so heavenly that he didn't realise that acting might have better prospects, although his first tilt at Rada ended in rejection, and his second attempt – successful this time – led to a not entirely happy stint at the drama school. If at Harrow he had suffered from snobs, at Rada he discovered the inverted variety. "It was never from people who'd worked hard and had come from little drama groups in Salford," he says. "It would be girls from Putney and stuff like that. I didn't have any middle-class friends at drama school."And all the way through I got deliberately niggled – and I think rightly – about whether I gave a shit or not. I remember having a lady teacher who said 'You shouldn't act... you definitely shouldn't act... I've watched you all this year and you've no access to your emotional life...'."By his final year he was annoying his teachers by accepting work – his first role, molesting a 15-year-old Keira Knightley in The Hole and getting narked when the film's director announced that Knightley was a star in the making "and I'm going 'Why aren't you telling me I'm going to be a star?'." A part in Robert Altman's Gosford Park followed, and then a whole succession of British and German soldiers, including one in ITV's Colditz, which got him noticed by Kevin Whately and cast in Lewis. Just in the nick of time because, as Fox puts it, he had been hitting his "self-destruct button" and getting a bit of a reputation for it. Where does the urge to self-destruct come from? "I think probably Harrow would do that to you," he says.Were his teachers at Rada right, I wonder? Does he maybe lack the ambition to go (as he once described Cate Blanchett) "gunning for an Oscar"? I quote back at him something he'd said about preferring to have a good time than be Daniel Day-Lewis. "I could do Daniel Day-Lewis's job as well as him," he replies. "Also I believe that Daniel Day-Lewis is a canny man. There are two main jobs in acting – the first one is to be a good actor and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor. I'm certainly not going to sit around and weep for missing out on Troilus and Cressida at half past seven on a Sunday evening – I'd rather be sitting there working out what the best way of catching a pike in a snaggy weir pool is. I think it's more healthy for me."Wife Billie Piper isn't, it seems, entirely sympathetic to Fox's self-estimation, and he tells me a story that ended with him describing a picture he'd seen as "ghastly". "Bill went, 'You think it's ghastly because you think you're better than everybody else'. And then I told this to my dad and my dad laughed so hard. My mum says it as well: 'You fucking Foxes... you all think you're so wonderful'; the irony is that we don't."He is resolute that he's not a star ("it's only Lewis"), but two things happen at the end of our lunch that suggest otherwise. First he tells me of being in Ibiza the previous weekend and watching the Vaccines in concert. "We went to the after-party and the lead singer came running over to me and said, 'I fucking love Hathaway'. And I was like, 'I think "Post Break-up Sex" is the best song I've ever heard'."The oldies love him too. As he's leaving the pub to have his photograph taken ("Be gentle with me," he says of our interview), the coach party from Derbyshire who'd been in the studio audience for Loose Women rise to cheer and say how much they love Lewis ("Better than Morse," says one, and I kind of agree). Left behind, I find his pouch of Golden Virginia on the floor – and one of the ladies whisks it away as a souvenir. Laurence Fox is a legend in his own lunchtime, at the very, very least.
Sex triggers the most TV gripes
COMPLAINTS about Australia's commercial free-to-air networks have more than doubled in just 12 months. There were 2816 complaints levelled at the nation's commercial free-to-air stations in the past financial year, Free TV's annual code complaint report shows. Last year there were 1292 complaints.A third were complaints regarding inappropriate program classifications, and leading the long list of gripes in that area were more than 300 complaints about the proliferation of sex and nudity on our screens.Although the report fails to name the offending programs, risque programs
have included Secret Diary of a Call Girl, the predictable flesh flashing in the Underbelly franchise and the in-political-office sex scene involving our on-screen prime minister in At Home With Julia.. British medical observational series Embarrassing Bodies has also attracted its fair share of raised eyebrows, with full frontal nudity - in the name of health education - gracing our screens weekly.After sex and nudity, language and then violence were the issues to attract the most complaints.Free TV's report comes less than six weeks after the Australian Communications and Media Authority released a report citing on-screen sex and violence as among our biggest concerns on the small screen.However, Free TV chief executive Julie Flynn said the increase in complaints was the result of a changed reporting procedure rather than a drop in industry
standards. This was the first full year incorporating complaints submitted electronically through the Free TV website's reporting mechanism, she said."It's clear from the low number of viewer complaints that the code (the Commercial Television Code of Practice) is working well," Ms Flynn said. "In fact, 2816 complaints amount to less than four complaints per month per service."The code, developed by Free TV Australia, requires networks to respond to complaints and, if the viewer is not happy with the response, the matter can be referred to ACMA. Of the 2816 complaints, only 2.2 per cent were referred to the
industry watchdog.
have included Secret Diary of a Call Girl, the predictable flesh flashing in the Underbelly franchise and the in-political-office sex scene involving our on-screen prime minister in At Home With Julia.. British medical observational series Embarrassing Bodies has also attracted its fair share of raised eyebrows, with full frontal nudity - in the name of health education - gracing our screens weekly.After sex and nudity, language and then violence were the issues to attract the most complaints.Free TV's report comes less than six weeks after the Australian Communications and Media Authority released a report citing on-screen sex and violence as among our biggest concerns on the small screen.However, Free TV chief executive Julie Flynn said the increase in complaints was the result of a changed reporting procedure rather than a drop in industry
standards. This was the first full year incorporating complaints submitted electronically through the Free TV website's reporting mechanism, she said."It's clear from the low number of viewer complaints that the code (the Commercial Television Code of Practice) is working well," Ms Flynn said. "In fact, 2816 complaints amount to less than four complaints per month per service."The code, developed by Free TV Australia, requires networks to respond to complaints and, if the viewer is not happy with the response, the matter can be referred to ACMA. Of the 2816 complaints, only 2.2 per cent were referred to the
industry watchdog.
Laurence Fox talks Christmas drama, Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me?
Laurence Fox – who is of course married to Billie Piper – has been telling What’s On TV all about his role as Jonathan Donald in ITV1 Christmas drama, Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me? which airs on Tuesday, December 27th.In the yuletide offering, Laurence’s co-stars include Sarah Smart and Jack McMullen, who play the roles of widow Laura Cooper and ‘Fast Freddie’ Copeland respectively.
First, when asked what the drama’s about, and what his part in it is, Laurence said, “I play Jonathan Donald. He’s a car salesman or, as he calls it ‘an international broker of luxury automobiles’.“He’s a complete tool! He gets caught drink driving and gets served a community service order.“He has to help at The Moonbeam Club for young adults with behavioural problems – who he affectionately calls ‘window lickers.’“And he gets struck by this young guy Freddie, who is terminally ill…”WOTV asked, “What is it about Freddie that strikes him so much?” to which Laurence replied, “I think he reminds him of himself when he was younger, except Freddie doesn’t have anything at all – not even a family."Freddie is smart and quick-witted and Jonathan really feels for him. He decides to create a perfect Christmas for him – complete with a fake family!“When Freddie’s real mum doesn’t want to know, Jonathan rents a mum instead, played by Tamzin Outhwaite.”Laurence – who’s also starred in Inspector Morse spin-off Lewis and is the son of iconic actor James Fox – went on to explain that although there is some sadness in the story, primarily down to Freddie being terminally ill, it’s also a “feel good Christmas thing.”He added, “It makes you laugh and cry. There’s a huge amount of feel good in it, but there’s no getting away from the fact that Freddie is terminally ill, which is hardly feelgood.“But it’s really well put together. I had tears in my eyes when I was reading the script.”And finally, when asked how he’ll be spending Christmas this year, Laurence said, “I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas, but my wife is…
“She’d have a Christmas tree out from August if she could!“My idea of a perfect Christmas is a quiet one with my family and then later nipping over to the in-laws or my family for a bit of Boxing Day banter and, sometimes, physical assault, depending on how much we’ve all drunk!”That sounds very familiar
First, when asked what the drama’s about, and what his part in it is, Laurence said, “I play Jonathan Donald. He’s a car salesman or, as he calls it ‘an international broker of luxury automobiles’.“He’s a complete tool! He gets caught drink driving and gets served a community service order.“He has to help at The Moonbeam Club for young adults with behavioural problems – who he affectionately calls ‘window lickers.’“And he gets struck by this young guy Freddie, who is terminally ill…”WOTV asked, “What is it about Freddie that strikes him so much?” to which Laurence replied, “I think he reminds him of himself when he was younger, except Freddie doesn’t have anything at all – not even a family."Freddie is smart and quick-witted and Jonathan really feels for him. He decides to create a perfect Christmas for him – complete with a fake family!“When Freddie’s real mum doesn’t want to know, Jonathan rents a mum instead, played by Tamzin Outhwaite.”Laurence – who’s also starred in Inspector Morse spin-off Lewis and is the son of iconic actor James Fox – went on to explain that although there is some sadness in the story, primarily down to Freddie being terminally ill, it’s also a “feel good Christmas thing.”He added, “It makes you laugh and cry. There’s a huge amount of feel good in it, but there’s no getting away from the fact that Freddie is terminally ill, which is hardly feelgood.“But it’s really well put together. I had tears in my eyes when I was reading the script.”And finally, when asked how he’ll be spending Christmas this year, Laurence said, “I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas, but my wife is…
“She’d have a Christmas tree out from August if she could!“My idea of a perfect Christmas is a quiet one with my family and then later nipping over to the in-laws or my family for a bit of Boxing Day banter and, sometimes, physical assault, depending on how much we’ve all drunk!”That sounds very familiar
Laurence Fox: how fatherhood made me a better actor
Laurence Fox’s family is not nearly as posh as one might presume. “My background isn’t exactly humble either because Dad earned money,” he admits. “But my mum certainly doesn’t come from wealth. Her father was a mine manager in Africa. And my dad’s family, well, a couple of generations back, his great grandmother was, basically, a hooker. I don’t know if I should say that. Poor old Glisters Worthington. Anyway, you definitely wouldn’t find our family in Debrett’s. No earls in the background. No royals at all.”Despite that, the Foxes – Dad is actor James (Passage to India, Performance), while his uncle is Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal, A Bridge Too Far) – are the go-to dynasty for upper-crust roles, royals in particular. Laurence’s own CV includes the drama Whatever Love Means, in which he played Prince Charles. He also appears as George VI in W.E., Madonna’s forthcoming film about Edward and Wallis Simpson. His father plays George V in the same film.“Why are the Foxes so often cast as the Windsors?” he ponders. “We look a bit like them, don’t you think? We have that kind of long, stoopy neck. But, if it pays the bills, love, I’ll look like anyone.”The family of which Laurence, 33, is a part has also produced two actresses – his cousin Emilia Fox and sister Lydia. “Not that we ever talk shop. We don’t feel it’s a dynasty at all. When we get together, it’s more likely that Dad will whinge about the fact that the dog has cr--ped on the floor. We’re not all sitting around reading Shakespeare together.”
Rada-trained Laurence is instantly recognisable as DS James Hathaway, Kevin Whately’s sidekick in the popular Inspector Morse spin-off, Lewis. And in Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me, an ITV Christmas drama, he also plays against type as mockney wideboy Jonathan Donald.“He’s a Bentley salesman sentenced to community service for a criminal misdemeanour. He ends up at the Moonbeam Club, a respite care centre for kids with special needs or terminal illnesses and forms a relationship both with the young widow who runs it and with Freddie, one of the kids who is dying.
Until that point his life has revolved around one-night stands and making a quick buck, but what he discovers is that he actually does have feelings.”Whereas normally he can just “waddle through a part”, this time, he says, he threw himself into the role. “I wanted to do it justice. Play it properly. Stupid haircut and everything. “When I read the script, I thought the first half was absolutely hilarious, but by the end I was sobbing, because the story is about a kid who is not
going to make it. Even now, it makes me feel completely emotional.”Blame the sensitive Fox genes (“We’re a sensitive, floppy lot”) and the Removal of several metaphorical layers of skin when he became a father three years ago. “Becoming a parent gives you access to a whole world of feeling. It gives you a much stronger sense of life and death: becoming a father made me realise my own mortality.”From the age of 13, Fox was schooled at Harrow, only to be expelled a few
weeks before his A levels, due to “an incident involving a girl at a sixth form disco – I can’t quite remember what, exactly”. “I had to go,” he concedes. “Up to that point, I was permanently, like, ‘Give me some cigarettes and some girls. Have we got any weed here?’ What a model student I was… lucky, lucky Harrow.He recently returned to his alma mater with his wife, the actress Billie Piper, and their son, Winston. “We were there because some friends were playing Harrow football. Only Harrow could have invented its own bloody football game that no one else in the country is posh enough to play!”More hilarious indignation follows when he relates an encounter on the sideline with one of his former sports masters who approached him and barked: “Come on, Fox, get on the field!” “I was like, ‘Dude! I have a job now, thank you, and this is my wife and child. Can we at least do first names, please?”Fox is laughing, but the memories are painful. A second baby is due in April, and he is adamant that his children won’t be educated in the Harrow tradition. “It’s probably changed a lot since I was there,” he says recalling an era in which fagging, for instance, was still the norm. “But I still think that public school wasn’t designed for the modern world. Also, I wouldn’t want Winston in a place where there are no girls. It took me about five years after leaving to have any real confidence around women.”Fox met his future wife while they were working together on the West End play Treats and married on New Year’s Eve 2007. (Billie’s first husband, DJ Chris Evans, helped organise the wedding.) Fox is fortunate, he says, to have Billie, who calms his fears and worst excesses. “I’m not nearly as good at looking after her as she is at looking after me. Really, she’s a much, much nicer person.”
Rada-trained Laurence is instantly recognisable as DS James Hathaway, Kevin Whately’s sidekick in the popular Inspector Morse spin-off, Lewis. And in Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me, an ITV Christmas drama, he also plays against type as mockney wideboy Jonathan Donald.“He’s a Bentley salesman sentenced to community service for a criminal misdemeanour. He ends up at the Moonbeam Club, a respite care centre for kids with special needs or terminal illnesses and forms a relationship both with the young widow who runs it and with Freddie, one of the kids who is dying.
Until that point his life has revolved around one-night stands and making a quick buck, but what he discovers is that he actually does have feelings.”Whereas normally he can just “waddle through a part”, this time, he says, he threw himself into the role. “I wanted to do it justice. Play it properly. Stupid haircut and everything. “When I read the script, I thought the first half was absolutely hilarious, but by the end I was sobbing, because the story is about a kid who is not
going to make it. Even now, it makes me feel completely emotional.”Blame the sensitive Fox genes (“We’re a sensitive, floppy lot”) and the Removal of several metaphorical layers of skin when he became a father three years ago. “Becoming a parent gives you access to a whole world of feeling. It gives you a much stronger sense of life and death: becoming a father made me realise my own mortality.”From the age of 13, Fox was schooled at Harrow, only to be expelled a few
weeks before his A levels, due to “an incident involving a girl at a sixth form disco – I can’t quite remember what, exactly”. “I had to go,” he concedes. “Up to that point, I was permanently, like, ‘Give me some cigarettes and some girls. Have we got any weed here?’ What a model student I was… lucky, lucky Harrow.He recently returned to his alma mater with his wife, the actress Billie Piper, and their son, Winston. “We were there because some friends were playing Harrow football. Only Harrow could have invented its own bloody football game that no one else in the country is posh enough to play!”More hilarious indignation follows when he relates an encounter on the sideline with one of his former sports masters who approached him and barked: “Come on, Fox, get on the field!” “I was like, ‘Dude! I have a job now, thank you, and this is my wife and child. Can we at least do first names, please?”Fox is laughing, but the memories are painful. A second baby is due in April, and he is adamant that his children won’t be educated in the Harrow tradition. “It’s probably changed a lot since I was there,” he says recalling an era in which fagging, for instance, was still the norm. “But I still think that public school wasn’t designed for the modern world. Also, I wouldn’t want Winston in a place where there are no girls. It took me about five years after leaving to have any real confidence around women.”Fox met his future wife while they were working together on the West End play Treats and married on New Year’s Eve 2007. (Billie’s first husband, DJ Chris Evans, helped organise the wedding.) Fox is fortunate, he says, to have Billie, who calms his fears and worst excesses. “I’m not nearly as good at looking after her as she is at looking after me. Really, she’s a much, much nicer person.”
Growing Pains at Center Stage
LONDON — It’s not often that one watches a play grow up before you. Neil LaBute’s “Reasons to Be Pretty” has matured
remarkably in the three-plus years since I first saw it Off Broadway in New York, with a Broadway run in between. And I don’t just mean that a title previously written entirely in lower-case has acquired capital letters in the interim.As its current Almeida Theatre incarnation indicates, “Reasons to Be Pretty” has bite and sting and — can one believe it from this writer? — a heart. Those who go to this prolific American dramatist’s work expecting to be outraged or offended or sprung a (sometimes meretricious) surprise may instead experience quite possibly the greatest shock of all. This is the first of Mr. LaBute’s many offerings, a half-dozen or so at the Almeida alone, to leave me with a lump in the throat.That’s due in part to the meticulousness of Michael Attenborough’s incisive staging, whereby an entirely British cast fully connects with the particularly American obsession with appearance embedded in Mr. LaBute’s title. “Reasons to Be Pretty” represents the third in a trilogy of plays from this writer on that theme, having begun with the world premiere at the Almeida in 2001 of “The Shape of Things.”But the heightened affect on this occasion owes no small amount to the skill of writing that makes even the passing details count. Note, for instance, the various books that the central character, Greg (Tom Burke), is seen to be
reading in the course of the play, a sequence extending from Poe and Hawthorne through to Swift and “Rip Van Winkle” that acts as its own commentary on the reawakening of an aspirational blue-collar worker who ends the play on the verge
of some kind of new life. Greg’s journey to that point consists largely of being buffeted, first by his girlfriend, Steph (Sian Brooke), whose face he described as “regular” in an offhand drunken comment that has been overheard by Steph’s good friend Carly (Billie Piper). Greg’s appraisal sends Steph into a tailspin that finds her delivering to his face a lengthy letter cataloguing in vivid detail his own physical shortcomings. At the performance I saw on Broadway, her epistolary broadside prompted an irate interruption from an audience member that, thankfully, was not repeated at a recent London matinee. Later, Greg is dressed down — this time physically — by Carly’s adulterous husband Kent (Kieran Bew, terrific), a colleague at the warehouse where both men have been manning the soul-sapping graveyard shift. Caught between spouses, his own partner receding from view, Greg becomes the perpetual apologist in ongoing free fall. Small wonder a scene change comes with the Queen song containing the time-honored lament, “find me somebody to love.”Will Greg achieve that goal? Not, presumably, without wiping the slate clean, though Mr. LaBute leaves tantalizingly open-ended the possibility that Steph, now embarked upon a serious new relationship and with the ring to show for it, may come to realize the folly of her fury sooner rather than later. (A bit more back story, by the way, might have helped contextualize Steph. As it is, it’s
hard to know to what degree we should view her jagged emotions as an aberration.) Not open to debate is the cut-and-thrust among a quartet of actors as deftly attuned to one another as any on the London stage right now. Ms. Brooke’s
natural radiance only complicates our response to Steph, who suggests that her issues of self-esteem are not easily held in check. Ms. Piper, pregnant herself in real life while playing someone who is as well, clocks the gathering anxiety that undercuts Carly’s natural sunniness. Letting slip how difficult “God has made it” to trust men, Ms. Piper hints that Carly, too, may be about to move on, no less dramatically than Greg.
remarkably in the three-plus years since I first saw it Off Broadway in New York, with a Broadway run in between. And I don’t just mean that a title previously written entirely in lower-case has acquired capital letters in the interim.As its current Almeida Theatre incarnation indicates, “Reasons to Be Pretty” has bite and sting and — can one believe it from this writer? — a heart. Those who go to this prolific American dramatist’s work expecting to be outraged or offended or sprung a (sometimes meretricious) surprise may instead experience quite possibly the greatest shock of all. This is the first of Mr. LaBute’s many offerings, a half-dozen or so at the Almeida alone, to leave me with a lump in the throat.That’s due in part to the meticulousness of Michael Attenborough’s incisive staging, whereby an entirely British cast fully connects with the particularly American obsession with appearance embedded in Mr. LaBute’s title. “Reasons to Be Pretty” represents the third in a trilogy of plays from this writer on that theme, having begun with the world premiere at the Almeida in 2001 of “The Shape of Things.”But the heightened affect on this occasion owes no small amount to the skill of writing that makes even the passing details count. Note, for instance, the various books that the central character, Greg (Tom Burke), is seen to be
reading in the course of the play, a sequence extending from Poe and Hawthorne through to Swift and “Rip Van Winkle” that acts as its own commentary on the reawakening of an aspirational blue-collar worker who ends the play on the verge
of some kind of new life. Greg’s journey to that point consists largely of being buffeted, first by his girlfriend, Steph (Sian Brooke), whose face he described as “regular” in an offhand drunken comment that has been overheard by Steph’s good friend Carly (Billie Piper). Greg’s appraisal sends Steph into a tailspin that finds her delivering to his face a lengthy letter cataloguing in vivid detail his own physical shortcomings. At the performance I saw on Broadway, her epistolary broadside prompted an irate interruption from an audience member that, thankfully, was not repeated at a recent London matinee. Later, Greg is dressed down — this time physically — by Carly’s adulterous husband Kent (Kieran Bew, terrific), a colleague at the warehouse where both men have been manning the soul-sapping graveyard shift. Caught between spouses, his own partner receding from view, Greg becomes the perpetual apologist in ongoing free fall. Small wonder a scene change comes with the Queen song containing the time-honored lament, “find me somebody to love.”Will Greg achieve that goal? Not, presumably, without wiping the slate clean, though Mr. LaBute leaves tantalizingly open-ended the possibility that Steph, now embarked upon a serious new relationship and with the ring to show for it, may come to realize the folly of her fury sooner rather than later. (A bit more back story, by the way, might have helped contextualize Steph. As it is, it’s
hard to know to what degree we should view her jagged emotions as an aberration.) Not open to debate is the cut-and-thrust among a quartet of actors as deftly attuned to one another as any on the London stage right now. Ms. Brooke’s
natural radiance only complicates our response to Steph, who suggests that her issues of self-esteem are not easily held in check. Ms. Piper, pregnant herself in real life while playing someone who is as well, clocks the gathering anxiety that undercuts Carly’s natural sunniness. Letting slip how difficult “God has made it” to trust men, Ms. Piper hints that Carly, too, may be about to move on, no less dramatically than Greg.
Kaya: No sex scenes with Piper
Kaya Scodelario has revealed there are no sex scenes between her and Billie Piper in the upcoming BBC drama Love Life.
Billie is set to play a teacher who develops feelings for a female pupil, portrayed by the Wuthering Heights star, in Dominic Savage's five episode series, airing on screens in 2012."I think the main focus of the programme is to put these two women in a situation... and understand the connection and emotions without it being a sexual thing. There are no sexual scenes," she said."And I hope people can watch it and understand that genuinely, and not just think, 'Oh she's getting it off with Billie Piper'. Which obviously they will think, because I did too!"Kaya - who also appeared on E4 series Skins - praised her co-star, saying: "Working with Billie was really, really good. It was scary taking on that role, having to have an emotion with a woman like that."The whole idea of love and relationships is my favourite thing to do on camera. So it was great to push it a step further and do it with a woman."However, the 19-year-old, who has had no formal acting training, found the
improvisation tough."Not one word was written down on paper. It's terrifying, until you find a natural rhythm," she admitted."Everybody was nervous about it, so I wasn't the only one. I think David Tennant had a panic attack before his first day because he didn't know what to say!"
Billie is set to play a teacher who develops feelings for a female pupil, portrayed by the Wuthering Heights star, in Dominic Savage's five episode series, airing on screens in 2012."I think the main focus of the programme is to put these two women in a situation... and understand the connection and emotions without it being a sexual thing. There are no sexual scenes," she said."And I hope people can watch it and understand that genuinely, and not just think, 'Oh she's getting it off with Billie Piper'. Which obviously they will think, because I did too!"Kaya - who also appeared on E4 series Skins - praised her co-star, saying: "Working with Billie was really, really good. It was scary taking on that role, having to have an emotion with a woman like that."The whole idea of love and relationships is my favourite thing to do on camera. So it was great to push it a step further and do it with a woman."However, the 19-year-old, who has had no formal acting training, found the
improvisation tough."Not one word was written down on paper. It's terrifying, until you find a natural rhythm," she admitted."Everybody was nervous about it, so I wasn't the only one. I think David Tennant had a panic attack before his first day because he didn't know what to say!"
Billie Piper shows great precision and warmth in Reasons To Be Pretty
Neil LaBute is a moralist who delights in presenting audiences with the spectacle of weak or unpleasant men behaving badly.His breakthrough came with the film version of In The Company Of Men (1997), in which two male colleagues cynically exploit the affections of a deaf female
subordinate. But in Reasons To Be Pretty, he gives us a male lead, Greg (Tom Burke), who is lacking in cruelty and faithlessness – even if he does commit the sin of describing the face of his girlfriend Steph (Siân Brooke) as merely ‘regular’ rather than very pretty.The result is a rather charming coming-of-age tale chock-full of good (albeit strongly repressed) feeling. Not that the play is lacking in the trademark verbal and physical viciousness we have come to expect of the writer. The war of the sexes is still raging in LaBute land. Greg’s best friend, Kent (Kieran Bew), is an energetically unreconstructed manipulator of others’ feelings, who has no qualms about abusing the trust of his pregnant wife, Carly.Michael Attenborough’s production draws strong performances from all four
actors: most notably, Billie Piper shows great precision and warmth in gradually stripping away Carly’s tough exterior.
Soutra Gilmour’s clever stage design consists of a large boxy container that gets rotated between scenes to blasts of rock-operatic bombast from Queen to reveal a series of cold, anonymously cheerless spaces. But, on this occasion, there’s at least the possibility of love to warm them.
subordinate. But in Reasons To Be Pretty, he gives us a male lead, Greg (Tom Burke), who is lacking in cruelty and faithlessness – even if he does commit the sin of describing the face of his girlfriend Steph (Siân Brooke) as merely ‘regular’ rather than very pretty.The result is a rather charming coming-of-age tale chock-full of good (albeit strongly repressed) feeling. Not that the play is lacking in the trademark verbal and physical viciousness we have come to expect of the writer. The war of the sexes is still raging in LaBute land. Greg’s best friend, Kent (Kieran Bew), is an energetically unreconstructed manipulator of others’ feelings, who has no qualms about abusing the trust of his pregnant wife, Carly.Michael Attenborough’s production draws strong performances from all four
actors: most notably, Billie Piper shows great precision and warmth in gradually stripping away Carly’s tough exterior.
Soutra Gilmour’s clever stage design consists of a large boxy container that gets rotated between scenes to blasts of rock-operatic bombast from Queen to reveal a series of cold, anonymously cheerless spaces. But, on this occasion, there’s at least the possibility of love to warm them.
Billie Piper - Billie Piper Praised For Confessing Animal Throwing Shame
Actress/singer Billie Piper has been praised by animal rights campaigners after she confessed her shame at abusing stray pets when she was a child.The Secret Diary of a Call Girl star has admitted she would target animals in streets near her childhood home in England and "launch" them through the air for entertainment. She's confessed she's wracked by guilt over her behaviour and would dearly love to change the past - but bosses at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) have praised her honesty and have asked her to work alongside them in a new campaign. Asked what she would most like to change about her past, Piper told the Guardian Weekend magazine, "My throwing animals phase. I used to pick up animals on the street and launch them as far as I could." A Peta spokeswoman tells WENN, "Peta is very happy to hear that Ms Piper regrets the casual cruelty that she perpetrated against animals when she was a child - that's the difference between a person with the real potential to be kind and someone who denies wrongdoing, takes pleasure in it and escalates the damaging behaviour. "Psychiatrists and sociologists can attest that in cases where animal abusers do not regret their ill deeds, they often 'graduate' to committing violent acts against human beings - unless someone intervenes to change their path... We will be asking Ms Piper to be a spokesperson for our campaign to sensitise
children, parents and teachers to the need to develop compassion in childhood through humane-education training in schools and at home."
children, parents and teachers to the need to develop compassion in childhood through humane-education training in schools and at home."
Theatre: Review - Reason To Be Pretty at Almeida Theatre
Billie Piper’s star turn in Neil LaBute’s latest offering is bringing the crowds flocking to the Almeida but Reasons To Be Pretty has a lot more going for it.About the repressed emotions within our relationships, in some ways it places the sexes simply and firmly at odds, with manipulator Kent (Kieran Bew) caring only for the proportions of his pregnant wife Carly’s bottom and dismissing any thoughts of fidelity.However, the casting of the main pairing dilutes the play’s central contemporary theme.The first scene – a foul-mouthed screaming match between the calm and oddly attractive Greg (Tom Burke) and fuming girlfriend Steph (Siân Brooke) which climaxes with the admission he had described her as simply “regular” rather than pretty – is stunning.Although at times stomach-lurchingly poignant, this play explores our deepest fears of being ugly, or at least not quite nice looking enough, but in casting Brooke it slips from time to time into the trap of the romcom – which with the American accents and Piper’s perfectly applied makeup it is constantly skirting around.Brooke is not regular – she is very pretty, blonde and petite.Much like the movie blockbusters, when the ugly duckling role is handed to the biggest lookers in the business, all believability is lost.Soutra Gilmour’s sets are cool and edgy, sprouting from inside an industrial container like an east London pop-up shop.But it would be facetious not to mention Piper’s portrayal of Carly.She is subtle and funny and fragile as the bolshie, stirring wife and best friend who’s struggling with her own fears of failure, rejection and that fact she knows that her husband is not a very nice man.
A clear success! Billie Piper has every Reason To Be Pretty as she covers her baby bump with an eye-catching red dress
Billie Piper has managed her transition from music to screen to stage with impressive ease. And last night she celebrated yet another theatrical success at the press night for of Neil LaBute's stage show Reasons To Be Pretty at London's Almeida Theatre.The 29-year-old star of the show turned out in red for the occasion.Looking lovely with her wavy golden hair loose, Billie smiled alongside her co-stars as they celebrated their well-received efforts. The star's husband, Lewis star Laurence Fox was also there to offer his support on the evening.Billie is 18 weeks pregnant with their second child- and in a happy coincidence her character in the play is also expecting. Piper, 29, takes on the role of Carly in the production, which focuses on modern day obsession with physical appearance.Carly is supermarket security guard (and chroni gossip) who suspects that her husband is being unfaithful.With a cast of four, the pressure is on for Billie- who has received favourable reviews for the opening night performance.The play also stars Kieran Bew, Billie Piper, Sian Brooke and Tom Burk.It is Billie's second venture onto the stage, having starred opposite real-life husband Laurence Fox, and Kris Marshall, in 2007 for Treats.The production took place at West End venue The Garrick, where the story followed a bizarre love triangle between the trio.After Billie gave birth to her first child Winston in 2008, she took a career hiatus to look after the latest addition to the family.She dabbled with a comeback in 2010 with a role in BBC One's A Passionate Woman, before retreating back to family life again.But despite expecting her second child in April 2012, Billie is back in the showbiz world with force.Piper has also signed up for feature film Truth About Lies, alongside British actress Ruth Wilson, which will begin shooting this winter.
Q&A: Billie Piper
Billie Piper, 29, was born in Swindon. She studied at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. At 15, she became a pop star with the hit song Because We Want To. At 18, she married broadcaster Chris Evans. Since her early 20s, she has concentrated on acting. On TV she played Rose in Doctor Who and Belle in The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. Film credits include Animals United, Spirit Trap and Things To Do Before You're 30. In 2007, she made her stage debut in Christopher Hampton's Treats and she is currently starring in Neil LaBute's Reasons To Be Pretty at the Almeida in London. She is married to the actor Laurence Fox. They have a son and live in West Sussex.
When were you happiest?
My son's second birthday. It was a typical autumn day – bright sky, cold fingers. He was dressed as a skeleton and we ate chilli in the garden.
What is your earliest memory?
Eating chips on the way home from playschool, looking forward to an episode of Puddle Lane, age three.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
My mother. She raised four children pretty much on her own. My father was around, but always out at work.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My obsession with time.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
People who point when they talk.
What is your most treasured possession?
My old love letters and pen pal correspondence.
What would your super power be?
Perfect grace.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Man hands, jaw, etc.
What do you owe your parents?
Apologies.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Chloë Moretz. She's simply brilliant.
What is your favourite word?
Skillet or glottal stop.
What is your favourite book?
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest Of Happiness.
What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
Willow Ufgood.
What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?
"I hope you die this Christmas" – you know who you are.
What does love feel like?
Good hate.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Joan Rivers.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Super, shut up you posh twat.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
My face.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
My throwing animals phase. I used to pick up animals on the street and launch them as far as I could.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
London in the 1930s, with money, spirit and an appetite for fun and lots of beautiful dresses.
What is the closest you've come to death?
Labour. Death wasn't on the cards, but it felt like it might have been.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Donny Hathaway, For All We Know.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Men are stupid, but women are crazy.
Tell us a secret.
I was so vicious when I was pregnant with our son that my husband developed a stammer
When were you happiest?
My son's second birthday. It was a typical autumn day – bright sky, cold fingers. He was dressed as a skeleton and we ate chilli in the garden.
What is your earliest memory?
Eating chips on the way home from playschool, looking forward to an episode of Puddle Lane, age three.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
My mother. She raised four children pretty much on her own. My father was around, but always out at work.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My obsession with time.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
People who point when they talk.
What is your most treasured possession?
My old love letters and pen pal correspondence.
What would your super power be?
Perfect grace.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Man hands, jaw, etc.
What do you owe your parents?
Apologies.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Chloë Moretz. She's simply brilliant.
What is your favourite word?
Skillet or glottal stop.
What is your favourite book?
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest Of Happiness.
What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
Willow Ufgood.
What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?
"I hope you die this Christmas" – you know who you are.
What does love feel like?
Good hate.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Joan Rivers.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Super, shut up you posh twat.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
My face.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
My throwing animals phase. I used to pick up animals on the street and launch them as far as I could.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
London in the 1930s, with money, spirit and an appetite for fun and lots of beautiful dresses.
What is the closest you've come to death?
Labour. Death wasn't on the cards, but it felt like it might have been.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Donny Hathaway, For All We Know.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Men are stupid, but women are crazy.
Tell us a secret.
I was so vicious when I was pregnant with our son that my husband developed a stammer
Celebrity photographer Lee Cropper jailed for sex assaults on models
A CELEBRITY photographer with clients including Billie Piper and Sadie Frost has been jailed for sexually assaulting models at his Haringey studio.Lee Cropper abused his position of power as a sought-after snapper to make women touch his genitals and rub his crotch during one-to-one photoshoots.Wood Green Crown Court heard yesterday how the 31-year-old, during one assault, dropped his trousers and said “I'm a pervert, is that alright with you?”.He persuaded the model to take her clothes off for a photoshoot and encouraged her to touch him sexually with the implied promise of giving her work.
In another assault, Cropper told the model to “look at him as her boyfriend”, prosecutor Sandy Canavan told the court, before sexually arousing himself in front of her.When she tried to flee his Hermitage Road studio, where he also lived, he told her he had been a “stupid boy”, and begged her not to report the incident to her agency.Ms Canavan said: “If you upset a photographer in the modelling world, being what it is, it can become difficult to be booked again by entire agencies or other photographers.“The defendant knew exactly what his position was, he was a successful photographer, he was somebody who had a very successful career and had photographed a large number of famous models, individuals and the like.”
She said Cropper's victims had left the scene of the attacks “frightened” and “terrified”, but added that some blamed themselves for what had happened.Louise Sweet, representing Cropper, suggested his rise to prominence as a photographer to the stars since 2008 had put him under pressure and he struggled to adapt.She said: “Perhaps he felt a bit insecure in that world, who knows. He began to drink because he couldn't cope with the pressure of the job.”Cropper rose in stature after posting his pictures on website MySpace. He went on to work for magazines including Vogue and Mirage, and has an extensive portfolio of celebrities who posed for him.He admitted carrying out three sexual attacks, one in September last year,
and two on the same day in May this year. He had already been convicted of another sexual assault on a model in January this year, for which he was given a supervision order. Judge Sean Lyons quashed the order, and jailed Cropper for a total of 33 months for the four assaults.In his sentencing remarks, he said: “These girls trust they will be dealt
with properly and professionally by a proper and professional person. They were deeply mistreated here and their trust was abused.“Fear was created, I've read through the evidence and listened to what I've heard described. 'It was scary, it was terrifying, I was shaking'. It is a serious part of these offences.”Ms Sweet said Cropper, who will be on the sex offenders register indefinitely and unable to photographer someone without another adult present, will look for an alternative career when he is released, and added: “His career as a photographer of any sort is over, there is no way he can go back to it.”
In another assault, Cropper told the model to “look at him as her boyfriend”, prosecutor Sandy Canavan told the court, before sexually arousing himself in front of her.When she tried to flee his Hermitage Road studio, where he also lived, he told her he had been a “stupid boy”, and begged her not to report the incident to her agency.Ms Canavan said: “If you upset a photographer in the modelling world, being what it is, it can become difficult to be booked again by entire agencies or other photographers.“The defendant knew exactly what his position was, he was a successful photographer, he was somebody who had a very successful career and had photographed a large number of famous models, individuals and the like.”
She said Cropper's victims had left the scene of the attacks “frightened” and “terrified”, but added that some blamed themselves for what had happened.Louise Sweet, representing Cropper, suggested his rise to prominence as a photographer to the stars since 2008 had put him under pressure and he struggled to adapt.She said: “Perhaps he felt a bit insecure in that world, who knows. He began to drink because he couldn't cope with the pressure of the job.”Cropper rose in stature after posting his pictures on website MySpace. He went on to work for magazines including Vogue and Mirage, and has an extensive portfolio of celebrities who posed for him.He admitted carrying out three sexual attacks, one in September last year,
and two on the same day in May this year. He had already been convicted of another sexual assault on a model in January this year, for which he was given a supervision order. Judge Sean Lyons quashed the order, and jailed Cropper for a total of 33 months for the four assaults.In his sentencing remarks, he said: “These girls trust they will be dealt
with properly and professionally by a proper and professional person. They were deeply mistreated here and their trust was abused.“Fear was created, I've read through the evidence and listened to what I've heard described. 'It was scary, it was terrifying, I was shaking'. It is a serious part of these offences.”Ms Sweet said Cropper, who will be on the sex offenders register indefinitely and unable to photographer someone without another adult present, will look for an alternative career when he is released, and added: “His career as a photographer of any sort is over, there is no way he can go back to it.”
Billie Piper: 'Motherhood Fixed My Relationship With My Parents'
Pop star-turned-actress Billie Piper has only patched up her distant relationship with her parents since becoming a mother, because they were "redundant" when she shot to fame as a teenager.The Brit became a chart sensation in the U.K. when she was just 15 and landed her first solo number one single in 1998. She moved into her own apartment and travelled the world as she released two hit albums. Piper then abandoned her pop career and enjoyed a short-lived, booze-fuelled marriage to U.K. TV star Chris Evans, which her parents found out about on a radio show. And she reveals she only recently became close to her mum and dad again after putting her wild days behind her and welcoming a son in 2009 - admitting she felt she didn't need them when she was riding her first wave of success. Piper tells Britain's Sunday Times Culture magazine, "I only refound (sic) my relationship with them (parents) recently. Sometimes I feel bad about the
things that happened between us. Having my own family brought me back to them. I wanted to share the joy of new life with them, and for them to be part of our baby's life. "They thought it (fame) would set me up for life. They said, 'You won't have the worries we've had, you'll see the world, meet people from all walks of life, live in London.' I made them redundant as parents. I grew up without them. Because I was given everything I wanted, I was a teenager with power, and I felt I didn't need them... which made their lives hard. They were terrified. I was very rebellious in my late teens and... I knew they would try to sedate all my madness. But I was loving it."
things that happened between us. Having my own family brought me back to them. I wanted to share the joy of new life with them, and for them to be part of our baby's life. "They thought it (fame) would set me up for life. They said, 'You won't have the worries we've had, you'll see the world, meet people from all walks of life, live in London.' I made them redundant as parents. I grew up without them. Because I was given everything I wanted, I was a teenager with power, and I felt I didn't need them... which made their lives hard. They were terrified. I was very rebellious in my late teens and... I knew they would try to sedate all my madness. But I was loving it."
Reasons To Be Pretty
A glimpse into Reasons To Be Pretty highlighting the plays themes of beauty and
our perception of our own appearance.
our perception of our own appearance.
Baby No. 2 on way for Billie Piper as the 'delighted' star reveals
pregnancy
Actress Billie Piper is expecting her second child — and a play she’s about to star in has been judiciously rewritten to accommodate her pregnancy.Billie, who is married to actor Laurence Fox, is 15 weeks pregnant. She is due to perform the first preview of Neil LaBute’s play Reasons To Be Pretty at the Almeida Theatre on November 10, with an official first night on November 17. Michael Attenborough, the Almeida’s artistic chief, who is also directing the production, said the actress was visibly distressed after the first night of My City — the Almeida’s current production.‘She was upset and told me she was pregnant,’ Attenborough said. He added she ‘very generously offered to withdraw’ from the show. ‘However, she was Neil LaBute’s and my first choice for the part — and fortunately the character is pregnant — so with a bit of judicious re-writing we’re all delighted she’ll be with us.‘I told her that I’d love her to do it and she just wept on my shoulder,’ Attenborough told me. ‘She thought that was it. She was thrilled.’When I saw the play performed in New York, it’s not immediately apparent that Carly, the character Billie will play, is pregnant — though you are made aware of it later. Now that LaBute has re-jigged his text, it will become very clear that Carly is expecting, which is good because by the end of the run in January, the one-time Doctor Who star will be more than six months pregnant. It’s not unheard of for actresses to continue performing on stage when they are expecting — witness Amanda Holden in the musical Shrek recently — but it’s rare that a playwright, particularly one as renowned as LaBute, would amend a published script.The playwright attended rehearsals and was impressed by Billie’s acting, as he was with her fellow cast members Sian Brooke, Kieran Bew and Tom Burke.Billie and husband Laurence already have a son, Winston, who is three. She has not missed any rehearsals — and even managed to fit in a scan two weeks ago around her Almeida schedule. Reasons To Be Pretty is about the notion of beauty and how it has the power to bring joy or to destroy.Billie’s role is that of a security
guard whose partner has a bit of a wandering eye, though I’m not now sure if being a guard will still be the character’s profession.The play is part of the Almeida’s new season. Following the LaBute drama will be The House Of Bernarda Alba with Shohreh Aghdashloo and Sarah Solemani — who stars with Russell Tovey in BBC3’s comedy success Him & Her.Samantha Spiro follows that with Filumena, and later next year Jonathan Pryce will give us his King Lear, directed by Attenborough.
guard whose partner has a bit of a wandering eye, though I’m not now sure if being a guard will still be the character’s profession.The play is part of the Almeida’s new season. Following the LaBute drama will be The House Of Bernarda Alba with Shohreh Aghdashloo and Sarah Solemani — who stars with Russell Tovey in BBC3’s comedy success Him & Her.Samantha Spiro follows that with Filumena, and later next year Jonathan Pryce will give us his King Lear, directed by Attenborough.
Billie Piper Expecting Second Child With Laurence Fox
Billie Piper joins the latest throng of celebrities expecting children after revealing that she and husband Laurence Fox are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their second child. Other pregnancies announced this week include Bruce Willis' wife Emma Hemming and former 'X Factor UK' contestant Stacey Solomon, while allegedly Jessica Simpson is expecting too - though the star won't confirm until she allegedly receives a rumoured $500,000 for the announcement. Piper's though has come fraught with conflict, as the star is set to be appearing in Neil Labute's play 'Reasons To Be Pretty' at the Almeida Theatre in London - with the preview taking place on November 10th 2011 and the official run beginning a week later on the 17th. Thankfully for the 'Diary Of A Call Girl' star, scriptwriters have altered her character so that she's pregnant. The UK's Daily Mail reports that she spoke with Almeida's artistic chief Michael Attenborough and offered to withdraw from the show, "She was upset and told me she was pregnant," said Attenborough, going on to add "She was Neil LaBute's and my first choice for the part - and fortunately the character is pregnant - so with a bit of judicious re-writing we're all delighted she'll be with us. I told her that I'd love her to do it and she just wept on my shoulder. She thought that was it.
She was thrilled." It means Piper can get on with the day job and fully look forward to the arrival of her second child, joining their three year-old son WINSTON JAMES FOX.
She was thrilled." It means Piper can get on with the day job and fully look forward to the arrival of her second child, joining their three year-old son WINSTON JAMES FOX.
Theatre: Local Listings > November 3
ALMEIDA THEATRE, Almeida St, N1, 020 7359 4404. My City, 7.30pm, Sat mat 2.30pm, £8-£32. Until Nov 5. Poliakoff’s first new stage play for more than a decade. Reasons To Be Pretty, Mon-Sat 7.30pm, Nov 17 7pm,
£8-£32. Until Jan 14. Neil LaBute drama starring Billie Piper.
£8-£32. Until Jan 14. Neil LaBute drama starring Billie Piper.
Death to Amy Pond? 'Doctor Who' Star Karen Gillan Sounds Off
Gillan wants her 'Doctor Who' character Amy Pond to die.Gillan, who will return with Matt Smith to the hit series in 2012, said she doesn't want to make any return cameos after her time as the Doctor's companion is
up."Death would be an option," Gillan said. "I don't want Amy to pop up again every so often, because for me it would take away from the big, emotional goodbye."'Doctor Who' is approaching a milestone 50th anniversary in 2013, with many speculating that the season will be the last for current stars Gillan and Smith. The Doctor's recent previous companions Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) have all made cameos after departing the TARDIS."Once she's gone, she's gone," Gillan said. "I want people to remember the Amy Pond era as a good one."
up."Death would be an option," Gillan said. "I don't want Amy to pop up again every so often, because for me it would take away from the big, emotional goodbye."'Doctor Who' is approaching a milestone 50th anniversary in 2013, with many speculating that the season will be the last for current stars Gillan and Smith. The Doctor's recent previous companions Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) have all made cameos after departing the TARDIS."Once she's gone, she's gone," Gillan said. "I want people to remember the Amy Pond era as a good one."
Tennant's a super rock doc
THANKS to his tardis, The Doctor can cross galaxies in seconds.Yet, in this hilarious web video, actor David Tennant promises to WALK 500 miles.The Scot stars in a great spoof clip which sees him and the cast and crew of Doctor Who filmed singing along to Proclaimers classic I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). The song reached No11 when it was originally issued in August 1988. But a 2007 re-release for Comic Relief saw it sail to the top spot. And in this video, shot during 2009, the actor is seen performing the track accompanied by fellow stars including Catherine Tate and Billie Piper. It was originally broadcast at the party to celebrate Tennant's departure from the show. His final appearance, after five years in the role, came on January 1 2010.
A weekend in Florida's chic party metropolis
Billie Piper and husband Lawrence Fox recently took their baby son Winston to the exclusive Setai hotel
Amazon Glitch: X-Men Schism And Fear Itself Hardcovers
Okay, so it’s not a glitch. Then again, the Swipe File isn’t all about swipes. A rose by any other name would still have been played by Billie Piper.But following a pattern now, massive X-Men hardcovers are being cut to ribbons pricewise online before they have even reached the shops, often at a price, especially considering freight and shipping, that the rtailers cannot themselves get from their distributor
Animals United in the Top 20 3D Films to watch!
It’s artwork looks like a riff on “Madagascar” – and the meerkat from “The Lion King” seems to have made his way onto the one-sheet – so I’m guessing that’s exactly what the flick will be. Large UK voice-cast, including former “Doctor Who” sidekick Billie Piper, funnyman Stephen Fry and – what the f… – Jason Donovan, suggest it’s a Brit production. Expect something along the lines of “The Kings Speech”, then?