Emily Atack is on cloud nine. Not only is she returning to screens in the second season of the hit Disney+ show Rivals, but she’s also “in the thick of” planning her fairytale wedding to her fiance, Alistair Garner.
“It’s a really exciting time. We’re so happy,” Emily tells HELLO! in this exclusive interview. The actress welcomed her first child, a son named Barney, in June 2024, and announced her engagement last year; she admits that life with Alistair, who works as a materials scientist, has been busier than ever. “Our lives go at a million miles an hour,” she says. “It’s stressful and crazy, but it’s blissful. I’m so lucky.”
The couple’s wedding is set to be a star-studded, three-day affair, with the cast of Rivals on the guest list. Emily, 36 – who plays the vivacious Sarah Stratton, the unfaithful wife of the MP Paul Stratton, in the acclaimed adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Eighties “bonkbuster” – has asked her “telly hubby”, Rufus Jones, to give a reading.
“It’s going to be lovely. I’ve really enjoyed planning it,” she says. “It’s going to be three days of joy with all my favourite people; it’s going to be chaos.”
Another impending celebration is Barney’s second birthday this summer. Is she thinking about expanding their family? “I’m so obsessed with Barney, I cannot imagine being obsessed with another baby at this stage,” she tells us. “We don’t have any plans to have more, but who knows?”
Emily, who admits that she found pregnancy “really tough”, says that she and Alistair, who live in Buckinghamshire, are “just getting our lives back to a semi-routine” after the arrival of their little boy. “I love babies, but I’m focusing on my little Barney for now, because he’s a handful and he’s keeping me on my toes,” she adds.
Supportive family
The actress returned to work just 11 weeks after her son was born, flying to Budapest to film the Channel 5 drama series The Rumour. “It was a lovely job, but that was really tough,” she says. “My body was still in pieces. I could barely walk, but I had to get back to work.”
Thankfully, Emily has the steadfast support of her fiance, whom she’s known since childhood. “He’s so amazing with Barney,” she says. “There’s no element of one of us doing too much. We’re both knackered, but we both really help each other. It’s definitely a very equal thing.”
The couple also lean on Emily’s “amazing” mother, the actress Kate Robbins, who is best known for voicing the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and Diana, Princess of Wales in the satirical puppet show Spitting Image.
“Barney is obsessed with her,” Emily says of her mother, who makes an appearance in season two of Rivals.
It’s not just her personal life that has been transformed over the past two years; Emily’s career has undergone a spectacular renaissance. Having found fame playing the popular schoolgirl Charlotte Hinchcliffe in the comedy series The Inbetweeners, she appeared in several films – including Dad’s Army, alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, in 2016 – before moving away from acting.
She finished as runner-up in the 18th series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2018 and landed her own sketch show, The Emily Atack Show, in 2020. She made a documentary film, Emily Atack: Asking for It?, in 2023, exploring her experiences with sexual harassment.
But after a two-year stint on the comedy panel show Celebrity Juice, Emily decided to venture back into the acting world. “I thought: ‘I’m going to take a risk and start auditioning again,’” she says.
Unrivalled opportunity
The opportunity to audition for Rivals soon followed. “It’s changed my life completely,” Emily says. “I haven’t been in something of this scale since The Inbetweeners. It’s been magic.”
© Dave Benett/Getty Images for GorThe drama, which is set in the fictional county of Rutshire, follows the rivalry between rakish Rupert Campbell-Black (played by Alex Hassell) and his neighbour, the ruthless TV network controller Lord Tony Baddingham (portrayed by David Tennant).
Almost halfway through filming on season two, author Jilly, who served as one of the show’s executive producers, died aged 88, after suffering a head injury in a fall at her home in Gloucestershire.
© Disney+“It was so shocking because she was still so full of life, drinking champagne and loving parties,” Emily says. “She would say to us: ‘I can’t believe this is all happening with Rivals,’ and she was on a high. It felt really unfair.”
The actress says that the new 12-part season, which is being released in two batches from 15 May, is a “love letter” to Jilly.
“I really miss her and we’re so lucky to have known her for as long as we did,” she says. “We just hope that we make her and her family proud.”
Season two of Rivals begins streaming on Disney+ from Friday
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