Emily Atack said she ‘couldn’t put her clothes back on’ after filming her notorious nude scene.
The Inbetweeners star was a part of the ensemble cast for last year’s Disney+ hit, Rivals.
The 35-year-old of course played Sarah Stratton, the mistress-turned-second-wife of an MP whose having an affair with the elusive Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell).
And even if you’ve not watched it, you’ll have at least heard about her bursting onto screen in the first episode’s naked tennis match. That scene is particularly famous, having been a key feature of Jilly Cooper’s original 1980s novel.
There was a whole lot of talk about the full-frontal nudity at the time as Atack said she’s a fan of a ‘big entrance’.
She’s now revealed more about the behind the scenes of what went into dressing that dressed down moment with a ‘stick-on muff’.
Chatting at the Edinburgh TV Festival yesterday (20 August), Atack spoke about embracing the producer’s wish to have her play Stratton.
“The breakdown for the characters said, ‘Think Emily Atack’, so they went, ‘Well, let’s just get Emily, then,’” she explained, adding that she still ‘had to audition’.
“I went in with all the get-up on and they thought I’d dressed up,” the star added.
“I was actually just going to a bar afterwards. They were like, ‘Thank you so much for dressing as the role,’ I was like, ‘No worries.’”
Atack joked that she had to ‘dig real deep’ to play the part as talk turned to the BAFTA-nominated naked tennis match scene.
Alex Hassell went with the ‘model’s own’ option rather than an oversizes prosthetic for the scene, as character Rupert was written to have a manhood he could ‘bat bread rolls with’.
Atack, of course, had the tennis racket and balls to somewhat cover herself with in the full-frontal nude moment. But that wasn’t quite all that was covering her.
“I had a stick-on muff,” she explained. “I had to have a merkin, it’s called, and I had all these fittings for them.
“They were going: ‘Oh no, it’s too blonde that one,’ and it had to be a proper Eighties bush.
“But that actually helped because it actually just felt like I had these big furry knickers on, and I kept looking at the monitor going: ‘Oh, do I look alright? Oh God!’”
While it felt ‘weird and jarring’ at first to see herself naked on camera, Atack was soon fine with it and felt like she ‘couldn’t put my clothes back on’ afterwards.
“It was quite liberating,” the actor said. “They were like, ‘Emily, can you put your clothes back on now?’”
With the first season a huge hit, production for a second season of Rivals started earlier this year as Atack returns with the cast.
