The Journal Meets... W.E. star Andrew RiseboroughShe’s one of the UK’s fastest rising actresses, already having won a Bafta TV award for her portrayal of the young Margaret Thatcher for the BBC and starred opposite Sam Riley in the remake of the British classic Brighton Rock.
Now Andrea Riseborough she stars in W.E., in which she is directed by one of the most famous women in the world, Madonna. She plays another infamous woman, Wallace Simpson, as the film recounts her affair with King Edward in the 1930s, and the scandal it caused across the world.
The story is told in an unusual way - the story of Wallace and Simpson runs parallel the fictional story of a modern day woman inspired and obsessed by the affair, but Riseborough believes this is a unique and interesting way to tell a moment in history.
“There are lot of different ways to explore someone’s life and a straight biopic has never been my personal choice," she told the Guardian. "So it’s interesting how we see a modern character and her living vicariously through Wallace, I found that kind of unique.”
The film is almost overshadowed by the reputation of it’s director, but Riseborough has nothing but good things to say about Madonna. “She was so passionate about it, so fuelled by this story and uncovering what she believed to be the truth (about the affair),” she revealed.
However, the actress was not intimidated by meeting and working with such a huge star. “There isn’t time,” she exclaimed. “The woman I was about to meet was to be my director, and I was potentially to be her actor, and that was the context in which we were first meeting. I know people want to hear, ‘oh, it was terrifying, I was shuddering with fear’, but it just didn’t happen.”
One potentially terrifying incident that did occur in the film was during a party scene, set to the sound of the Sex Pistols in the movie, where Riseborough’s character and her friends hold a debauched party filled with dancing and revelry. “I said, ‘when this happens, it will be complete hedonism, I could do anything,” she recalled.
“The jewels I was wearing flew off at one point. I was turning around and a necklace worth an awful, awful, awful lot of money flew off my neck and the woman from Cartier caught it, She was like, ‘Non! Mon Dieu!’," she laughed.
