Texts may destroy you: I Hate Suzie star Billie Piper on the harrowing truth of phone-hacking

A former teen pop star? One who turned to acting? Billie Piper’s latest role, in I Hate Suzie, seems more than a little autobiographical.

Thankfully for Billie, she’s never experienced having compromising photos stolen and humiliatingly published everywhere.

In her new Sky One comedy drama, Billie plays Suzie Pickles who has to deal with a painfully embarrassing leak and the subsequent implosion of her career.

As a celebrity – one who faces the very modern problem of a phone hack being a real possibility – the Secret Diary Of A Call Girl star knows how close she is to becoming the real Suzie.

“This is not autobiographical, but a lot of my own feelings are there as a woman in her 30s,” she said. “My photos have never been hacked, for example – but setting it in the world of being an actor creates a lot of drama, fun and entertainment.

“Everyone has a profile now: whoever you are, if your phone is found it could be so incriminating. Your entire life could be destroyed by a few innocent texts.

“It doesn’t have to be anything huge to take someone apart these days. It never felt like we were pushing people away with this story, because it’s a familiar concept: the unmasking of someone.”

Wearing two hats – as lead actor and executive producer – on a seven-part television series is intense.

“When I’m in it I don’t realise how much it’s stressing me out but playing someone who’s rattled all day every day does have an impact,” she said. “The stuff as exec producer really added to the anxiety, because we were up against so many things, so we had little margin for error. It informed the work.

“Even though the day was so tough, I enjoyed the end of episode one, dancing down the street in the village, singing. I’m happy letting everyone know through the work that I’m actually a bit weird and everything came together with that. It was like an Oliver! moment.”

After the success of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, working once more with series creator Lucy Prebble was a draw for Billie. The pair had worked so well together that they never quite lost touch.

“We were still in touch a lot after Call Girl – the origins of I Hate Suzie were many conversations at a particular time in our lives, our late 20s and early 30s, where everything became very intense,” said Billie.

“We were talking pretty much every day, it felt like a shared anxiety.

“What was really encouraging was that we wanted to make a very different show to what everyone else wanted to make.”

I Hate Suzie, Sky Atlantic, Thursday, 9pm