Billie Piper says she’s “chuffed” that audiences around the world will get to see her award-winning play Yerma. As it ends it’s second theatre run in London, it’s being broadcast live in cinemas globally. A far cry from her pop star or Doctor Who days, it’s an intense performance about a woman struggling to have a child.

It’s the role which has won her five star reviews and a Laurence Olivier award. Essentially the theatre version of an Academy Award or a Bafta, she says “it’s a really prestigious award,” with a massive smile on her face. “My non-actor friends laugh though that it’s essentially actors giving awards to actors for acting. But it’s a wonderful thing and I’m unbelievably jazzed about it.”

Billie Piper plays the character of Her, Her, who does something unimaginable in her desire to have a child. Watching the trailer is like watching a preview of a horror film, with words like “harrowing” and “utterly gruelling”.

“People being moved by something that makes them think. There’s an influx of what I feel is mindless cinema and I think to watch something like Yerma makes you think a lot about your life. It’s very hard to beat the pull of an iPhone so it’s nice to go and watch something that transforms your day. It’s important.”

Piper has been with the play for more than a year, originally performing in it last year and coming back for another four-week run in 2017. Doing 100 minutes of intense emotional drama every night could take it’s toll so there’s an easy way for her to switch off. “Mindless TV,” she says. “I get home, put the Kardashians on (her favourite is Kris Jenner) and watch something that takes you away from anything remotely serious.”

As one of Doctor Who’s most famous former assistants – Rose Tyler – Piper also says it makes “perfect sense” for a woman to now be playing the lead. “I think it would be a snub at this point if they didn’t put a girl in that role. Jodie is a beautiful person. “I tried really hard to get the insider information on who it was. I went through Matt Smith, who went through his well placed source at the BBC but no-one knew. We speculated but just couldn’t get it out.”

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I ought to be fine interviewing Billie Piper. She’s my best friend. We chat rubbish about our lives every other day. But coming in and talking to her for Stylist feels different..

At the shoot, I find Billie smiley but very much in charge and I’m reminded briefly that, ‘Oh yeah, Billie is a star’. Stars have a gravitational pull that can’t be explained; people orbit them. And today, it’s not Billie, my hungover, rolling-up mate; it’s Billie, the award-winning actress who stunned critics with her incredible portrayal of a childless woman in 2016’s Yerma. She is perched on a chair reminiscing with make-up artist Karin, who, by coincidence, is the same make-up artist who worked with Billie at the very beginning of her career. It’s fitting Karin being here because, at 34, it feels like Billie is embarking on a whole new phase of life, one that’s as big as her Nineties transformation from Swindon teen to pop superstar.

I met Billie over 10 years ago when we worked together on the TV show Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. I wrote it, she starred in it. It turned out lighter than we both wanted and the critical reception was fierce so ultimately it wasn’t the perfect creative experience for either of us, but I clearly remember her turning to me at the end and saying, “I want to be your friend.” What an honour. Since then she’s also starred in my 2012 play, The Effect, and we’re now creating a new TV show together, about a woman in her 30s going through a life crisis. That’s something we both can relate to.

In the last 18 months, Billie has ended her eight-year marriage [to actor Laurence Fox] and embarked on an emotionally shattering performance at the Young Vic with Yerma – about a woman craving motherhood in a society that demands it – collecting a prestigious Olivier Award for Best Actress in the process. The play has recently returned to the stage and will be broadcast to 2,500 venues in 60 different countries via National Theatre Live on 31 August. She also has a BBC thriller, Collateral, coming up about the repercussions after a shooting, alongside Carey Mulligan. From teen pop star to power player on the British acting scene, it feels like Billie’s subverted expectations and turned her life upside down. We often talk about our mid-30s and how for both of us, it’s been an age of reinvention and risk. Or, as Billie would say, ‘an absolute sh*tshow’…

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Billie was seen in North London the other day. HQ candids have been added below, I’m loving her dress & shoes!

22ND JUNE | IN NORTH LONDON

Billie attended the Glamour Women of the Year Awards where she won the Shisheid Group Theatre Actress Award! 84 HQ photos have been added below + videos of her speech & backstage with Lily James!

6TH JUNE | GLAMOUR WOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARDS

David Tennant and Billie Piper are reprising their roles of the Tenth Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler in three new Doctor Who audio dramas from Big Finish Productions in arrangement with BBC Worldwide. David Tennant’s Doctor, portrayed on screen from December 2005 until December 2009, returned in the 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, with Matt Smith and Sir John Hurt in 2013, and on audio for Big Finish with Catherine Tate in 2016.

Billie Piper portrayed the Doctor’s much-loved companion Rose in 2005 and 2006, returning for a number of stories in 2008. She also appeared as The Moment – which had taken Rose’s form – in The Day of the Doctor. These new stories will be Billie’s eagerly-awaited debut for Big Finish. Executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery says: “Getting David and Billie back together was definitely on my bucket list – two wonderful actors who created an era of Doctor Who which is so fondly remembered and brought a different aspect of the relationship between the Doctor and his companion to the fore – love, both platonic and unrequited. It’s great to have the Tenth Doctor and Rose back again!”

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures – Volume 2, to be released in November 2017, is comprised of three thrilling hour-long full-cast audio adventures.

The set opens with Infamy of the Zaross by John Dorney, in which an alien invasion of Earth isn’t quite what it appears to be – Camille Coduri guest stars as Jackie Tyler. In the second adventure, Sword of the Chevalier by Guy Adams, the Doctor and Rose arrive in Slough in 1791 and encounter Chevalier D’Eon, an enigmatic ex-spy who has lived their life as a woman. Together they must fend off alien slavers, who have come to Earth to abduct valuable humans. Finally, in Cold Vengeance by Matt Fitton, the TARDIS arrives on Coldstar, a vast frozen food asteroid in deep space. But there is something sinister defrosting in the network of storage units… the Doctor’s old enemies the Ice Warriors! Nicholas Briggs plays Ice Lord Hasskor and Warrior Slaan.

“We were thrilled by the response to the first volume,’ says David Richardson. “David Tennant and Catherine Tate were on fantastic form, and it’s so exciting to reunite David with Billie Piper, playing the Doctor and Rose together again after nine years! Their time in the series transformed Doctor Who into a prime-time and international hit, and we’ve worked very hard to live up to the incredible standards of Russell T Davies.

Billie attended the Olivier Awards and WON FOR BEST ACTRESS IN ‘YERMA’. ‘Yerma’ also won for ‘Best Play Revival’!! I am SO proud of her, and she seemed happy the entire night & overwhelmed with her award! I have added 170 HQ images from the awards, there shall be more to come! Check them out below as well as some red carpet footage & backstage interviews!

9TH APRIL | OLIVIER AWARDS

9TH APRIL | OLIVIER AWARDS | PRESS ROOM & BACKSTAGE

BBC Two today announces Collateral, a gripping, high-octane thriller set in present day London, from pre-eminent playwright David Hare and starring Academy-Award nominee Carey Mulligan (An Education, The Great Gatsby, Suffragette).

It was commissioned by Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama, and Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content.

The ensemble cast will also include John Simm (Life On Mars, State Of Play), Nicola Walker (Spooks, Last Tango In Halifax), and Billie Piper (Doctor Who, Penny Dreadful) who most recently won multiple awards for her on-stage role in Yerma at the Young Vic. Acclaimed director SJ Clarkson (Dexter, Jessica Jones, Love Nina, Toast) will helm.

Set over the course of four days, the four-part drama explores the spiraling repercussions surrounding the fatal shooting of a pizza delivery man. Refusing to accept this is a random act of senseless violence, tough and single-minded Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie (Mulligan) is determined to discover if there is a darker truth.

Politician David Mars (Simm) becomes instantly embroiled in the drama through his turbulent relationship with his troubled and unpredictable ex Karen (Piper). While Jane Oliver (Walker), a compassionate vicar, struggles to conceal her affair with the only witness to the crime. Hare’s electrifying writing acts as a moving spotlight, asking crucial questions about the state of modern Britain.

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