Carey Mulligan
Age: 23
Hometown: Though she spent part of her childhood in Germany, Mulligan calls London, the city of her birth, her hometown.
Currently: Making her Broadway debut opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard in The Seagull as dewy-eyed Nina—part Eve Harrington, part broken-winged innocent—a role she is reprising from the acclaimed Royal Court production in London.
Early Ambition: The daughter of a hotel management consultant and a lecturer, Mulligan says she has performing in her blood despite having no actors in her family. “I fell in love with it was when I was six years old, and they were doing a production of The King and I at school. My brother was in the play and I wasn’t.” When the family observed a rehearsal, Mulligan remembers suddenly wanting to be in the show, too. “I think I stamped my feet a little bit, and they let me in.”
Jolly Good Fellowes: Her parents wanted her to go to college, but Mulligan had other ideas. Displaying the same brand of cheekiness that got her into the school production, she contacted Oscar-winning actor/writer Julian Fellowes. “He was the only actor I had ever met because he had given a talk at my school,” she explains. “I was clutching at straws really. I got hold his address and I wrote to him and said he was my only connection in the industry.” Her audacity paid off. The generous Fellowes said he “knew an assistant who knew the assistant of [casting director] Jina Jay, who was looking for young English girls to play the sisters in Pride and Prejudice.” Mulligan nabbed the role of Kitty Bennet in the film, which starred Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, and “the plan of going to university went out the window.”
Acting with the Stars: Mulligan is living proof that dreams can come true. “When I was 16, I remember having dreams about being in a film with Judi Dench. Then I’d wake up, realize it was a dream and be so disappointed because it wasn’t real.” Two years later, it was: “My first day acting in my life was with Judi Dench [as Lady Catherine de Bourg] on Pride and Prejudice. I couldn’t even move. I was so completely starstruck. She came up to me and introduced herself, and I just remember being like, ‘You’re the most classy person I have ever met!’”
I Hope I Get It: At her Seagull audition, Mulligan recalls feeling so tense, “I burst into tears the minute I left the room because I was so desperate to get it.” She was sick when she went in for the callback: “I had this horrendous cold and felt dreadful. I took so much cough syrupy god-knows-what and was so nervous. I came out of the audition with mascara all over my face, and I remember waking up on the bus thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve done it!’ Four days later, Mulligan was in the makeup chair on a Dublin film set when she got the call she had been waiting for. “My agent rang me and said, ‘You’re playing Nina!’ and I just completely lost it. The guy curling my hair burnt my forehead because I was running around like a psychopath. I couldn’t believe that I got it.”
Putting It Together: The Royal Court production of The Seagull featured Chiwetel Ejiofor as Nina’s older lover, Trigorin. With a recast needed for Broadway, one wonders if Mulligan, who co-starred with Peter Sarsgaard in the upcoming movie An Education, was instrumental in getting him the part. During filming, she recalls, “The Seagull was looming, but it was never set in stone [for Broadway]. The director, Ian [Rickson], was like, ‘Who should I cast as Trigorin? Text me suggestions!’ I said to Peter, ‘You should do it.’” Sarsgaard didn’t seem to take Mulligan seriously. “Then I was in the car with Peter one day, and Ian rang me and he was like ‘What do you think of Peter Sarsgaard?’ And I was sitting next to him! I said, ‘Yeah, good choice!’”
Soaring in The Seagull: With her mixture of aspiration, innocence and suffering, Nina is a difficult part to pull off successfully. “Life’s coming at her like a train and she’s can’t take it all in,” Mulligan says of Nina’s emotional rawness—especially in her final speech, when she continually interrupts herself to exclaim, “I am the seagull.” The actress found her way into the character by paying attention to the logic of the words. “It’s obviously a challenge,” she says of the heartbreaking scene. “I see it as kind of hopeful. Unlike everybody else in the play, she’s going to go on and survive. She’s suffering, she’s unwell and she hasn’t eaten for days, so things are coming out in the wrong order but it all makes sense.”
Initiation: Mulligan has the giddiness of a New York newbie. “I really feel at home here,” she exclaims, ticking off her NYC to-do list: “I want to eat a lot of bagels and granola and all of the good food. And see lots of films. I want to see more theater, but I’m not going to be able to.” She says she even feels like a bit of a local. “I had two bicycles stolen, and I’ve only been here for five weeks. I definitely feel like a real New Yorker.”