Rivals star Emily Atack says 'confident' women are vilified and stereotyped

Emily Atack on why she doesn’t want to be typecast in sexy roles. (Image: Getty Images) SUBSCRIBE Invalid email

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Rivals star Emily Atack has laughed off suggestions that she is being stereotyped as a sexually dominant female.

The 34-year-old is best known for portraying liberated sixth former Charlotte Hinchcliffe in E4 comedy The Inbetweeners.

Her latest role sees her play a sexually confident diva in Disney+ series Rivals, an adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s 1980s bonkbuster novel.

Despite describing her character Sarah Stratton as a “car crash”, she says she has empathy for how women had to earn their status in the 1980s, in which Rivals is set.

Emily, who stars alongside The IT Crowd’s Katherine Parkinson in the drama, said: “Sarah is a car crash of a woman and she’s very naughty, very manipulative and quite promiscuous. People say, do you feel typecast ever? But no, she’s also fun and ambitious, and I think women in the past have been written very negatively.

“Women like this have been villainised. They’ve been vilified forever. So to be able to play a role like this and make her really likeable, hopefully, you really kind of root for her.

“That’s a different take on a character like that. It was great fun for me.”

She added: “Back then, and maybe now, women had to use their sexuality to get the things that they want because, at times, there was no other choice.”