The Rising Star
Madonna may be the most famous name associated with “W.E.,” the romantic drama she directed that premiered at the Venice Film Festival in late summer. But the woman everyone could be talking about after the film comes out on Dec. 9 is someone rather different: Andrea Riseborough, a 30-year-old British actress who steals the show.
Riseborough plays Wallis Simpson, the Baltimore socialite who in the 1930s shocked the world when she began dating Edward, Prince of Wales; he eventually became king but abdicated the throne to marry her.
Though history has come to view Simpson and Edward’s relationship as a grand romance, Riseborough incarnates the character more subtly. Though the film doesn’t downplay the sacrifices he made, it also plays up her doubts about their decision to pair. The couple were forced to live in exile for the remainder of their lives, and Riseborough shows Simpson as a woman whose joie de vivre was tempered by a sense of boredom and even melancholy about their existence.
“She’s a figure a lot of people think they understand,” Riseborough said. “And what was tantalizing to me was the chance to correct that.” The actress appears in period scenes as a kind of specter to the film’s Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), the modern-day protagonist who, trapped in an unhappy marriage, becomes increasingly obsessed with Simpson’s story.
Click here to continue reading this story by Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times.