Hannah Baxter

Hannah Baxter
'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' character
First appearance	Episode 1.1
Created by	Lucy Prebble Brooke Magnanti (source material)
Portrayed by	Billie Piper
In-universe information
Alias	Belle de Jour
Gender	Female
Occupation	Independent escort Published author
Family	Gail Baxter (mother) Niall Baxter (father) Jackie (sister)

Hannah Baxter is the lead semi-fictional character of the British ITV2 television series Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Hannah secretly lives a double life as a high-class call girl as her alter ego Belle, for which she acknowledges and comments directly to the audience, throughout each episode. The character Hannah Baxter is based on the real life published memoirs of former London call girl Brooke Magnanti, who is better known by her pseudonym, Belle de Jour. She is portrayed by actress Billie Piper.

Characterisation

It's more than the obvious danger of walking into a room with a man you don't know. There's the danger of two carefully constructed lives crashing into each other.

Hannah is portrayed as a wise, confident, intelligent, and at times, an outspoken or cheeky character. Although a University graduate with a degree in English Literature, Hannah chooses a career as a call girl for the sake of the money, for which she reveals that she makes a yearly turnover of £105,000 (though, she claims, it takes £20,000 "to be Belle"). She further claims her career is ideal since she is "fundamentally lazy", in control, and also because she genuinely enjoys the pleasures of sex (in a video blog she reveals with some degree of satisfaction that she lost her virginity to her 40 year old chemistry teacher ). Open minded and truly a professional when it comes to her role as a high end prostitute, Hannah has gone as far as considering a breast augmentation to better appeal to clients, and will likely attempt a variety of fetishes and bedroom scenarios with them. Furthermore, Hannah appears to pride herself on her skills in the bedroom and her ability to size her male clients, such as predicting what kind of lifestyles they lead based on what their sexual interests are and the price, ratings, and styles of the hotels they pay for on "out calls".

Piper's pregnancy was concealed by loose-fitting clothing in Series 2

It is demonstrated throughout the series that Hannah is incredibly meticulous when it comes to organizing her personal life with her work, for which she keeps the two completely separate, and will go great measures to keep her occupation concealed from family and friends, which often means she relies on lying, such as telling others that her occupation is a legal nighttime secretary. Despite Hannah's discretion and lengthy attempts to keep both worlds apart, the issue of secretly juggling both identities frequently reappears in the series, often resulting in negative inner turmoil for her and feelings of loneliness. Often Hannah deals with how much balance is placed on either her personal life or work, for which she is, usually, focused on work – leaving her personal life sometimes neglected, such as when she misses the birth of her sister's child. She claims that romantic relationships are typically avoided, since her profession merely complicates them, which is demonstrated in the second series where she develops a relationship with a man that ends badly.

Hannah is typically capable of separating her true self while dawning her persona Belle while working, however there have been moments in the series where she's found it difficult, such as when she lets her guard down and reveals to a client in the first episode her real name, has intruding thoughts of family and relationships at times with clients, or when she develops a friendly relationship with a male client only to feel personally betrayed when he chooses to hire a different call girl. Despite the disappointments and emotional frustration that sometimes comes with Hannah's work, she is truly happy with her work, as demonstrated at several points throughout the series when she attempts to get a "normal job".

As a call girl, Hannah believes her appearance is paramount, explaining that "if I'm not in good shape, then neither is my career". On the show there are visual differences between her and her alter ego Belle, for which she maintains a girl next door image in her real life, and an elaborate sultry one as Belle, which usually includes provocative clothing and impeccable makeup application.

Actress Billie Piper herself commented on the difficulties of Hannah's wardrobe as Belle since Piper was pregnant during the filming of series two. Piper described Hannah's usual attire worn, explaining, "I wear tight clothes in this show, so it's obvious [her pregnancy]." The crew decided to shoot using ulterior angles, to disguise her baby bump, with Piper noting, "We were shooting around my torso, basically." For the nude scenes, body doubles were employed. In addition, Hannah's wardrobe changed frequently, including the use of accessories such as shawls being worn, or on occasion, an entirely loose-fitting outfit.

Character history

The first series serves as an introduction to Hannah's double life as Belle, her variety of clients, rules, and methods of juggling her separate worlds while trying to please her clients, and sometimes unsuccessful, attempts to remain connected to her best friend, Ben (Iddo Goldberg), and family, who are not aware of what she does for a living.

Eventually, after a couple of incidents where Hannah becomes troubled with work and suffers the burden of secrecy by having no one to talk to, she reveals to Ben what she does. Although Ben is disappointed and angered that she has been deceiving him, he accepts Hannah's choices, counsels her on matters of work, and even joins a foursome with her and a married couple who are her clients. It becomes apparent that Hannah and Ben – who used to be in a romantic relationship two years ago – still may have more than simply platonic affection for one another.

Towards the end of the series Hannah is offered a role as a courtesan, which she is initially enthusiastic about, but eventually walks away from – despite the luxury – because of the lack of excitement. Instead of returning to her agent Stephanie (Cherie Lunghi), Hannah chooses to go independent, with the support from Ben.

For the second series Hannah deals with the challenge of mentoring young escort wannabe Bambi (Ashley Madekwe) – while entering against her better judgment – a blossoming romance with a man called Alex (Callum Blue), who is unaware what Hannah does for a living. Though Hannah is happy with Alex, and the pair care deeply for one another, their relationship surprisingly does not crumble after Alex discovers Hannah's secret life. However when given the ultimatum between himself and her work, Hannah eventually is caught returning to sex for money, despite earlier promises to him that she would abandon her life as Belle.

With the support of Ben and Bambi, Hannah writes and publishes a memoir of her adventures and life as London call girl at the end of the series, where she – under disguise – remarks to an interviewer on television that she had once been in love, referring to Alex.

In the third series, Hannah prepares to publish her next novel, for which her first from the previous series was a success. Her publisher encourages her to choose more outlandish clients, with even more odd sexual fetishes, to make an even better story for her next book. Meanwhile, Hannah's sister Jackie decides to crash at Hannah's flat after a fall out with her husband, potentially interfering with Hannah's life as Belle.

External links

• Template:Imdb character
• Secret Diary of a Call Girl at itv.com
• Secret Diary of a Call Girl at showtime