Emily Atack says 'getting her kit off' does not undermine her campaigning to end violence against women

Emily Atack is braced for criticism over her decision to play sexy Sarah Stratton in new drama Rivals - but she says the role was “perfect”.

The actress, who found fame as Charlotte in The Inbetweeners, campaigns to stop violence against women. And she says that playing a character who uses sex as a way of getting ahead doesn’t undermine her message in the slightest. “I know lots of people will say, ‘Hang on a minute. One minute she's talking about violence against women, the next minute she's getting her kit off in a show. That doesn't correlate,’ but what I'm trying to show is that it should not matter at all.

“As soon as I read it, I got the same feeling that I got when I first auditioned for Charlotte from The Inbetweeners; the same little thrill in my stomach of, ‘Oh my god, this is perfect for me.’ There are roles in life that come along and completely grab you and you feel like you're made for.”

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Emily Atack said her role in Rivals was 'perfect' for her

She says the joy of the character is that Sarah should be hateful, but she isn’t. “Sarah’s extremely promiscuous, but she's also funny. There's a comedy edge there. It was such an honour to be able to play a role like that when women haven't always been written very well, especially women like this,”she explains. “You could easily just make this woman completely stereotypical and unlikeable, and instead, she was instantly likeable. I read the scene and I instantly loved her. It’s in my bones to play roles like that.”

When the series based on Jilly Cooper’s 1980s bonkbuster Rivals launches later this month, viewers will be Emily’s character bedding leading man Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell). The pair also play a game of tennis in the nude. She said that far from being nervous about filming that particular scene, she loved it. “The tennis scene was probably one of my favourites. It was a beautiful sunny day and I’d been exercising, I’d been – I wouldn’t say dieting, I love wine and pasta too much – but I’d been doing my sit-ups and my squats, and I was ready to do this naked scene.”

She said all her co-stars supported each other through the raunchy sex scenes
(Image: Robert Viglasky)

She said all the cast took strength from each other because almost all of them are involved in romps involving intimacy co-ordinators. “It really interested me to see what nudity does to human beings – we were all like giggling teenagers, hugging each other, high-fiving each other, going, ‘Oh my God! Yes! You did it!’”

Her character Sarah is an ambitious woman in the man’s world of the 80s. Formerly the PA of Deputy Prime Minister Paul Stratton (Rufus Jones), she is determined to better the hand that life has dealt her and climb to the top in the only way she can, starting by becoming Paul’s glamorous, and much younger, second wife. But quickly disillusioned by the age gap and her dull domestic life, Sarah sets about using her feminine wiles to exploit every opportunity.

Emily says she relates to how Sarah feels. “It also comes from a very personal gut feeling in my stomach about the years that I've struggled in this industry, and you feel you have to use your sexuality to get the things that you want. If you're taught from a young age that's what you have to do, then that's what you do.”

All episodes of Rivals streams on Disney+ from October 18

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