Andrea Riseborough: ‘Love scenes with Emma Stone were easy – men’s egos often get in the way’

Andrea Riseborough says it was easier to film love scenes with Emma Stone than with male co-stars — because she didn’t have to deal with their “delicate egos”.

Oscar-winner Stone, 29, plays tennis champion Billie Jean King in biopic Battle Of The Sexes. British star Riseborough, 35, portrays Marilyn Barnett, with whom King had a secret love affair in the Seventies.

The actresses were already friends before filming began, having worked together on the Oscar-winning Birdman in 2014. Riseborough said: “Emma and I made Birdman together so we’d known each other there and we’d spent time socially.

“I think we both felt relieved that the other was going to play opposite each other in this because we had a connection.

"It was also new enough or tenuous enough that there was still more to learn about each other so there was a nervousness and that kind of excitement you get when you’re first falling in love.”

Riseborough, who has also starred in Made In Dagenham, Brighton Rock and The Death Of Stalin, said she had filmed awkward love scenes in the past.

“I’ve worked opposite so many male actors whose egos have been so delicate that it was just so hard to do the work,” she said.

“And it just takes that extra bit of energy and you think, ‘Am I enabling this’, but you just get through the day and do what you can.”

The new film focuses on the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between King and Bobby Riggs, played by Steve Carell. It also delves into King’s personal life.

“There was a pressure on Emma and I to honour this very magical time in their lives, which was also a very confusing time in Billie Jean’s life,” Riseborough said.

“She was with us and she was making the film with us. It’s been such a joy to have her on this publicity tour, we all just follow Billie around.

"She’s loved by so many people, it’s quite phenomenal.”

Riseborough runs her own female-led production company, Mother Sucker, and wants studios to invest in more diverse projects instead of blockbusters.

“In my industry, I think women’s roles have gone in the wrong direction, ” she said.

“But now that diversity is a hot topic and people are prepared to invest in it financially, hopefully we could turn that around and they could stop giving [Transformers director] Michael Bay money.”

Battle of the Sexes is out on Friday.