Simon Thompson: I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how I felt about Rare Beasts, but it’s one of the things I’ve seen this year that I continued to think about the next day. Are the reactions to it what you expected? 

Billie Piper: I always knew it would be divisive because the nature of the story and the tone of the film are not going to be up everybody’s street. It’s demanding, and it grapples with some more taboo subjects. Also, the characters are all very coarse. I imagined that it would rub people up the wrong way more than it has, but that wasn’t the quest. I thought the fallout would be possibly greater than it has been. A lot of women have found it to be something that they can really deeply relate to, which is both brilliant and terrifying.

Thompson: Because this is so different and divisive when you came up with this idea, did anybody suggest that you did something a bit more mainstream as it was your directorial debut?

Piper: No, no one did. The people that work with me, like my agent and my closest friends who are confidents, this is sort of always the way I’ve worked. I’ve never been interested in doing things half-measures. I am not remotely seduced by nice, fine, mainstream work. I understand there’s a place for it, but I don’t get anything from it. In terms of acting choices, I don’t think I’ve ever gone for things that feel like I’m joining the dots. People know that’s my mode, and so they didn’t challenge it. The most important thing is with your first feature or your first piece of writing or your first anything, the quest should be a big one, and you should feel something personally, be fully committed to it. The risk is definitely greater, but I think the outcome is more satisfying.

Thompson: Rare Beasts is not what I expected, but I also didn’t know quite what to expect, and that was refreshing and somewhat of a relief. It’s also rare.

Piper: I think that I suffer from this too. We’ve watched so much stuff recently, we are all so well versed in storytelling, and we have far worse concentration spans now. You mention that this stayed with you, and I’m also someone who will watch something and not think about it five minutes later. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the quality of the work or whether that’s a sign of the times. With Rare Beasts and another of my projects, I Hate Suzy, I am acutely aware of keeping people tied in. I would hate for people to walk away from the film and never think about it again, but I would hate for that to happen across any work I’ve done. I feel like that would mean it was pointless on some level.

Full interview