Emily Atack has spoken out after her nude scenes in the Disney+ hit Rivals were shared and misrepresented online.
The 34-year-old actor, who rose to fame as Charlotte Hinchcliffe on The Inbetweeners, stars in the new Jilly Cooper adaptation as Sarah Stratton, an aspiring TV star.
In one scene, Atack’s Sarah and Alex Hassell’s Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black play naked tennis on the lawn of a country estate.
While the scene was shot carefully, with two tennis balls cleverly positioned to hide Atack’s merkin (a fake hair piece), online trolls have screenshotted and presented the images as if they are nude leaked footage unconnected to Rivals or any acting role.
Speaking to The Times in a new interview, Atack said: “I knew something like that would happen, just not this quickly. I’m at work, I’m playing a part, that scene is integral to the book. I am exactly where I need to be. I can’t control people’s sexually aggressive behaviour, but I can continue with my campaigning and fighting for women’s freedom.”
Atack has been campaigning against misogynistic abuse after experiencing it for years on social media. She was widely praised for her 2023 documentary Emily Atack: Asking For It?, in which she discussed her own experiences of sexual harassment and set out to learn how something “so grotesque, aggressive, malicious and violent” has evolved.
In her new interview about Rivals, she continued: “I should be able to do a scene like this and not receive negative attention. The two should not go hand in hand. A woman said to me on Instagram the other day, ‘Pick a lane. You can’t play a racy role like that and get your clothes off and expect not to get messages. Why would you take that role?’
“And I wanted to say to her, ‘Are you telling me essentially to quit my job?’ Why should I? Women have to change their clothes; we have to change our routes home. I’m a professional. I’m never going to please everybody.”
Later in the interview, she confessed that she identifies with her Rivals character, Sarah.
“I’m not afraid to say that any more,” she said. “She’s incredibly misunderstood. I feel she was one of the girls who hung around with the boys because that’s where she felt welcome and she learnt a way of using her sexuality as a coping mechanism. And that’s how it was for me.
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“My heart races a bit when I admit that, because I sometimes think it’s quite jarring to hear a woman say that. But I identify with it. I get her.
“You end up rooting for her – not her bad behaviour, but you learn to understand that she’s using her sexuality to get the things she needs and the security she needs. It’s so much more complicated than just slut-shaming.”