FOX - FOX AVOIDS BILLIE MISHAP

Actor James Fox has revealed he is relieved to have avoided the embarrassment of starring in future daughter-in-law Billie Piper's latest project.

Speaking at the UK premiere of his new film Mister Lonely, Fox - father to Billie's fiancee Laurence - said that while he would love to act alongside Billie, it is probably best he was not approached to act alongside her in her recent ITV2 series Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

The former singer plays a high-class prostitute in the series, an adaptation of bestselling novel Belle de Jour.

Asked about the prospect of the young actress joining the Fox acting dynasty, he said: "She's a lovely girl, we really love her," and revealed the whole family are looking forward to the new year wedding.

But Fox, a Golden Globe nominee for 1966 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, joked: "I'm glad they didn't ask me to act in her new series - she played a hooker, didn't she? I could've been one of Bill's clients!"

Fox, uncle to actress Emilia Fox, plays a Pope lookalike in Mister Lonely, the new movie from Kids writer Harmony Korine.

Hitting UK screens in March 2008, it stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson lookalike who befriends Samantha Morton's Marilyn Monroe impersonator and travels to her lookalike commune in the Scottish highlands.

Fox's love interest in the film is a Queen Elizabeth II impersonator played by Anita Pallenberg, who is best-known for her romantic links to three of the Rolling Stones. Her son Marlon was fathered by the band's guitarist Keith Richards.