Lily Allen didn’t know why she agreed to be interviewed for this text.

On a current morning, sitting exterior a London cafe, the British singer stated she had paused earlier for a second of reflection. “I used to be like, ‘Why am I doing this?,’” she stated. “I form of surprise why I put myself in these conditions, and open myself as much as criticism.”

Allen, 38, hypothesized that the reply is likely to be narcissism, or her resignation to the necessities of being within the public eye. “It’s been my life since I used to be like 18 years previous,” she stated.

Since Allen burst onto the pop music scene within the mid-00s with lilting reggae-infused tracks like “Smile,” her relationship with the press has been fraught. She has all the time been outspoken — in her lyrics, in interviews and on social media — and for a few years, she was a fixture in Britain’s tabloid newspapers. In 2009, she obtained a courtroom order to cease paparazzi following her round London.

“It’s not a really good feeling,” she stated of that type of consideration. “Particularly whenever you’re in your early 20s, and also you’re nonetheless attempting to determine who you’re on the planet.”

Now, Allen lives in New York, the place she largely goes unrecognized. She was again in London as a result of she has additionally left music behind — at the very least for now — and turned her consideration to performing, as a substitute.

Allen is at the moment taking part in a lead function in a West Finish revival of “The Pillowman,” the 2003 play by the “Banshees of Inisherin” author and director Martin McDonagh, which runs at The Duke of York’s Theater by way of Sept. 2.

“I nonetheless get to play with the human expertise,” she stated of this profession transition, “however I don’t must put my coronary heart on my sleeve as a lot” as in her — typically very private — songs.

Allen’s mom is a movie producer and her father an actor, however as an adolescent she was drawn to music. When she was 19, in 2005, she signed to the Regal/Parlaphone label and constructed a following on the then-nascent social media web site MySpace. In keeping with Michael Cragg, who lately wrote a e book on British pop music, the music scene on the time “was type of mired in ‘The X Issue’ and TV expertise exhibits.” The consensus, he added, “was that pop wanted a little bit of a kick up the bum.”

Clad in prom-style clothes, chunky gold jewellery and sneakers, Allen was a brand new type of British pop star. With a London accent, she sang her personal humorous and provocative lyrics about messy relationships, intercourse and self-loathing. “A younger lady singing and presenting themselves in that means felt very thrilling,” Cragg stated.

Her first two albums — “Alright, Nonetheless” and “It’s Not Me, It’s You” — had been business and significant successes, however the making and advertising of a 3rd, “Sheezus,” in 2014, was extra fraught: In interviews, she has described having an “id disaster” on the time, as she tried to be each a pop star and a brand new mother.

In 2018, Allen’s subsequent launch, “No Disgrace” — a low-key file that addressed her divorce and emotions of isolation — was nominated for the Mercury Prize, however Allen has since change into disillusioned with the music trade, she stated. “It’s so aggressive, it’s so rooted in cash and success and digital figures,” she added. “I’m simply not serious about doing any of that.”

At across the identical time, she additionally modified her relationship to alcohol and medicines. “From 18 to about 4 or 5 years in the past simply seems like a little bit of a haze, as a result of I used to be actually simply off my face the entire time,” Allen stated. “I used to be utilizing fame as effectively — that was an dependancy in itself: the eye and the paparazzi and the chaos.”

Allen’s “4 yr sober birthday” fell on the date of this interview, she stated, and it appeared that chaos had abated. Three years in the past, she married the “Stranger Issues” actor David Harbour, 48. Her life in New York with him and her two daughters from her earlier marriage was “fairly leisurely,” she stated.

So when she was approached about an performing function within the West Finish present “2:22 A Ghost Story,” she “was like, ‘No, I don’t act and I reside in New York, so no thanks,’” she stated. However Harbour satisfied her to take the gig, and it earned her a nomination within the Olivier Awards, Britain’s equal to the Tony’s.

In “The Pillowman,” Allen performs Katurian, a author dwelling in a totalitarian state, who’s questioned a couple of string of kid murders that remind the authorities of her fictional tales. Like a lot of McDonagh’s work, it’s as darkish as it’s comedian.

Allen stated she noticed a by way of line between McDonagh’s “darkish and sick humor” and the lyrics of the songs she used to put in writing. In rehearsals, she added, “I might say issues that individuals would possibly ordinarily be shocked by, and also you take a look at Martin, and he’d be smiling.”

Allen’s flip as Katurian is the primary time the function has been performed by a girl, and her casting offers Katurian’s interrogation scenes, during which she is verbally and bodily abused by two detectives, a special weight.

“The play actually is about patriarchal brutality,” stated Matthew Dunster, the manufacturing’s director. “I stated to Martin, ‘That is going to be actually tough for audiences to take, this slight lady being handled to brutally so early on within the piece,’ and Martin stated, ‘Isn’t that the purpose?’”

Dunster additionally directed Allen in “2:22 A Ghost Story,” and he stated he had seen her develop as an actor. “What was thrilling to me was to see her taking possession of her personal course of,” he stated.

When “The Pillowman” ends, Allen intends to return to New York. Her precedence could be settling her two daughters into center faculty, she stated, however she had additionally utilized for performing programs.

Sooner or later, she stated, she hoped to land lead roles in movies and tv. However, for now, she added, she was leaving herself open “to any alternatives that come my means.”