More Carey Mulligan Interviews

Here are a few new Carey Mulligan interviews as she continues to promote An Education, opening in limited [in NY and LA] theaters this Friday [Oct. 9th]. This time the interviews were from the following...

ComingSoon.net:


Exclusive: Carey Mulligan Gives Us An Education

ComingSoon.net: I just spoke with Nick and Lone, but I didn't really get into the process on how they found you. I assume it was a huge audition process because they looked at tons of actresses. Was this just a case of your agent getting the script and you having to do a lot of auditions?
Carey Mulligan: Yeah, it's just the usual thing. They sent the script over and they picked scenes. Went in and met a casting director and read with her and then got brought in to meet Peter (Sarsgaard) and then the last audition was with Lone, but it was over almost two years from the first to last visit because it fell apart and went away and then they were like "Oh, they're not making that anymore" and then "they are making that again" or "they might want you to play Helen." Oh, really? (laughs) Went through a few incarnations and then yeah, finally got it and it was another five months before we started shooting.

CS: This was all after "Pride & Prejudice" was finished?
Mulligan: Yeah, yeah, way after. I was doing "The Seagull" in London the first time I auditioned.

CS: You only just realized it when you were there every single day and everyone else was just coming and going?
Mulligan: Yeah, I was like, "Wow, I'm really tired" but I didn't think "Oh, I'm the lead and I'm carrying this film." And I still don't feel like I'm carrying this story. I do feel like they carry me, and you do raise your game when you're working with people like Emma and Alfred and Cara and Peter and Dominic and Rose [Rosamund Pike], all of them. You don't want to be the weak link in that cast. God forbid you're the weak link in that cast. I think Lone took that weight and responsibility off of me and I never felt like I was responsible for the film or the story. She was responsible for the film and the story and I had to play things scene by scene and try to be truthful in each scene. I loved it. I just had a really good time and it never felt like hard work. There was one day where I had a bit of a meltdown right towards the end when we were shooting something and we blocked it the night before and then we came back to shoot it in the morning and they'd moved the cameras so they've changed the blocking. I was just exhausted and I got completely overwhelmed and I couldn't breathe and it was very stressful, but that was the one day. Everything else was bliss.

CS: Did you realize you'd be working with Rosamund Pike again after working with her in "Pride & Prejudice"?
Mulligan: Yeah, yeah, she came on after and I was so excited. I love her, and Dominic as well. Dom and I have known each other for years and we have this brilliant tradition for going in for table reads of Working Title scripts. Working Title are like, "Oh, we need some actors. Dominic, Carey..." so we come in and read these parts and we're (apparently) abominable, then we're the only ones that don't get cast in the final film. It's a tradition, so that's sort of how Dom and I met.

Read Carey Mulligan's full interview here.


Next is one from Indiewire.com:

Carey Mulligan On Her “Education”

“It was one of those things that was such a good script, but it’s about a girl, so it might never get made,” “An Education” star Carey Mulligan told indieWIRE. “So when it did, and we were finally on set, I couldn’t believe we were there. These films fall apart, and it’s so heartbreaking that they do.”
Luckily for Mulligan, the only hearts breaking over “An Education” should be those of audiences members. As Jenny, a bright sixteen year old negotiating her womanhood in the midst of a relationship with a very unsuitable suitor (played by Peter Sarsgaard), Mulligan has been enchanting essentially anyone lucky enough to see the film since its debut in Sundance earlier this year. The press instantly began touting her work in the film as one the year’s major breakthroughs and when the film finally opens in theaters this Friday, North American audiences are likely to agree.

Mulligan began acting when she was nineteen, scoring a supporting role in Joe Wright’s “Pride & Prejudice.” After not getting accepted to drama school (“I went past Juliiard earlier and I was like ‘awww,’” she said. “Because I was desperate to go to drama school for so many years and I still sort of think I have that in me somewhere”), she contacted screenwriter Julian Fellows (“Gosford Park”), who had given a talk at her high school.
“I said, ‘you know, I’m heading to university but I don’t think there’s really any point to me going,” Mulligan recalled. “‘What do you suggest?’ And he took me and a couple of other people out to dinner who’d written similar letters. And then he introduced me to this casting director who knew another casting director who was meeting young girls that had never acted before to play the younger sisters in ‘Pride & Prejudice’... And that ended up being my first professional experience.”
Read more!


And from The Huffington Post:

Carey Mulligan Gets 'An Education' In Movie Stardom

On the letter that started her career:
"My letter was to Julian Fellowes who'd given a talk at our school when I was about 17 and about winning the oscar for 'Gosford Park' and being a screenwriter and was the only actor I'd ever met in my life. I applied to drama school and didn't get in. And in using places on my university application to apply for drama school I didn't get any places at university. My parents were quite upset at me...So I wrote to him, 'You came to my school and I met you briefly and I know that I want to act but I don't think I'm going to get through the three years before I can get back to drama school.' He took me out to dinner with a bunch of other people who'd written the same type of letters whether they wanted to be actors or writers...and I met Joe Wright and auditioned about three times for 'Pride & Prejudice' and that's how I got the job."

On the superstars she's learned from:
"I didn't go to drama school, my first job was 'Pride and Prejudice' so from the beginning I've been so lucky to be surrounded by people I admire. Like Day 1, Judi Dench...I guess Emma Thompson has been the biggest female influence. Our day, because we had one day to shoot all our scenes together, I quite liked. She was amazing. She knew the first names of the whole crew by about 11 in the morning. And then in the evening we ran over by about half an hour and she got beer and wine and pizza for the whole crew and had a 'we ran over' party."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/carey-mulligan-gets-an-ed_n_311477.html

Read the rest here.

Update 10/8/09:

Here's another one from movie fone. This one's very interesting to read especially in the parts where she was asked about how she got her role as Kitty Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, working with P&P co-stars, director Joe Wright, imitating Jena Malone and co-starring again with Keira Knightley in her upcoming film Never Let Me Go.

Read the Highlights below...

Carey Mulligan Talks 'An Education,' Oscar Buzz & 'Wall Street 2'

Chances are you don't yet know the name Carey Mulligan ... well, not unless you a) religiously follow celebrity gossip (she's reportedly dating her 'Wall Street 2' co-star Shia LaBeouf; b) religiously follow film festival news or awards buzz (her new film 'An Education' is a Sundance darling and Oscar contender); or c) are Keira Knightley, who Mulligan made her screen debut alongside in 2005's 'Pride & Prejudice' and will reunite with in next year's 'Never Let Me Go.'

You will soon, though -- for any of the reasons above -- but first and foremost, for the raves the 24-year-old Brit is drawing for her performance in the indie drama 'An Education.' Mulligan plays a wise-beyond-her-years teen in early-60s London who falls into a precarious relationship with an older man (Peter Sarsgaard).

You've gotten fantastic reviews for your role in 'An Education.' How do you feel when you hear the word "Oscar" being tossed around next to your name?
I don't know. I make strange noises [laughs]. To be honest, I'd never been to a film festival before and I'd never played a lead in a film before, so when it sold at Sundance that was pretty much as good as it gets for me. But if that's what people are saying and that means that more people will go see the film that's obviously brilliant. It is too wild to really register.

How did you land your first film role, as Kitty in 'Pride & Prejudice'?
I wrote to Julian Fellowes, who is a writer who wrote 'Gosford Park,' because he had given a talk at my school when I was about 17 and he was the only actor I'd ever met. So I contacted him and said that I was headed to the university but, actually, I wanted to act and I had no way in because I didn't know any actors or anything. And he introduced me to someone who was looking for people who'd never acted before to play the younger sister in 'Pride and Prejudice.' So I went to an open casting for 'Pride & Prejudice' and put down a tape, so that was how that happened.

What do you remember about that filming experience?

I walked on and had never acted professionally, let alone in a film, so I got coached through it by Joe Wright and I copied everything that Jena Malone did, because she played almost a twin, so I basically did everything she did. And that was how I got through it ... It was an incredibly tight gang of people. Joe Wright does that brilliantly, he builds families while he builds his casts and he makes you spend a lot of time together, so you do kind of form those relationships. And that comes off in his films really well.

You're reteaming with your 'Pride & Prejudice' sister Keira Knightley in 'Never Let Me Go.' Is that just a happy coincidence that you're working together again?
Yeah, I mean, I was offered the part, Kathy, and they hadn't found Ruth yet. They asked Keira and she signed on, so we got to do another film together. It was wonderful. It's not just easy because you're working with a friend, but also someone you've acted with before and you understand how you both like to work.

Read the full interview here.