001: Göteborg Film Festival
002: Göteborg Film Festival

Director, actor and ex-pop star Billie Piper thinks that life is characterized by concern and prefers unsympathetic characters. The film’s frenetic pace reflects her own experience of life’s demands, especially women.
– For me, Rare Beasts is a movie about women trying to navigate a time when everyone says we can have everything: career, family and relationships. The film explores the reality behind that message and how it affects our lives. It is not only positive. Many women feel a tremendous stress, she says, and is similar to the feeling she wants to elicit in the film with a long panic attack. – I think every day is an in-your-face experience. From waking up, I worry about what the day will contain. There is so much going on all the time, an experience that is surely enhanced by all the technology we have today.

Having previously been recognized for roles in the TV series Doctor Who, it was a natural step for Billie Piper to start directing.
– I’ve dreamed of directing since I was a kid. But it was only now that I felt I had enough self-confidence.

Acting both the lead role and the director has also been a balancing act. Billie Piper hesitates before exposing herself to the double role again.
– I wanted to be more present at the moment as a director, but I couldn’t because I had to constantly think about how I would act as an actor next. It is strange how the dual roles affect the brain. There is no room to think both acting and directing at the same time.

Before joining the acting career a few years into the 2000s, Billie Piper had a successful music career. With the song “Because we want to” in July 1998 she topped the British singles list as a 15 year old. The musical background does not go unnoticed in Rare Beasts.
– Unknowingly, I think I’ve been influenced by being in many music videos as a teenager. And because I watched music a lot when I was a kid. I think there’s a sense of movement in Rare Beasts. Almost like watching a dance.