Laurence Fox releases first album ... but there’s no duet with Billie Piper
Laurence Fox says that playing a detective in Lewis for the past decade has made him feel more like a “highly paid policeman” than an actor — and music is his real passion.
His debut album as a singer and songwriter is out today — although he has no plans to duet with his wife, Billie Piper, pictured below.
The star, 37, is part of the Fox acting dynasty which includes his father James and siblings Lydia and Jack. “I love acting, I really do,” he said.
“I suppose I got into it because it’s something we do in our family. And I only got into acting because I didn’t get into acting school — they pissed me off so I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to give up!’ When you do 10 years of a TV series where you’re playing a policeman, you feel more like a highly paid policeman than you do an actor. Music is a passion. It’s difficult to say which one is more important because they are totally different.”
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Fox, whose record is called Holding Patterns, first picked up a guitar when he was 20. He has spent several years playing open-mic nights across the country, “driving around with a guitar in the back of a car”.
His latest acting role is as Charles De Gaulle in The Patriotic Traitor, which starts this month at the Park Theatre. Lewis ended last year. He said he feels more vulnerable as a singer because his songs include lyrics about his personal life. He added: “I don’t mince my words. It’s there. I’m not dressing it up. But it’s not just my private life, it’s everyone else’s private life too.
“I’m not the only person that feels this way about things — music is there to connect people with each other. I don’t really feel like I’m doing a Hello! interview to music.”
Fox married Piper in 2007 and the couple have sons Winston, seven, and Eugene, three. When asked about the prospect of a duet he replied: “No, no, no. We’ve never discussed it. We have at one point in our lives sat down and had a little tinkle with a song, but we’re into quite different sorts of music.”
