Carey Hannah Mulligan is an English actress who was born on May 28, 1985. She has received a British Academy Film Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award.
Mulligan made her professional stage debut at the Royal Court Theatre in Kevin Elyot's play Forty Winks (2004). She made her film debut in Joe Wright's romantic drama Pride & Prejudice (2005), and she went on to have a variety of roles in television, including the drama series Bleak House (2005), the television film Northanger Abbey (2007), and a guest appearance in Doctor Who as Sally Sparrow. She made her Broadway debut in the revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull (2008), for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.
Mulligan's breakthrough role was as a 1960s schoolgirl in the coming-of-age film An Education (2009), for which she received a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She received additional praise for her roles in Never Let Me Go (2010), Drive (2011), Shame (2011), The Great Gatsby (2013), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), Suffragette (2015), Mudbound (2017), Wildlife (2018), and She Said It (2010). (2022). Mulligan was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of David Hare's Skylight (2015), and she received her second Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of a vigilante in the black comedy Promising Young Woman (2020).
Mulligan has been an Alzheimer's Society ambassador since 2012, and a War Child ambassador since 2014. Since 2012, she has been married to singer-songwriter Marcus Mumford. They have two kids.
Childhood and education
Carey Hannah Mulligan was born in London on May 28, 1985, to Nano (née Booth) and Stephen Mulligan. Her father, a hotel manager, is of Irish origin and was born in Liverpool. Her mother is from Llandeilo, Wales, and is a university lecturer. Her parents met in their twenties while both working in a hotel. My Grandparents' War (2019) delves into her maternal grandfather Denzil Booth's role as a naval radar artillery officer on the HMS Indefatigable during the Battle of Okinawa and then sailing into Tokyo Bay at the end of WWII.
Mulligan's father's hotel manager job took the family to Germany when she was three years old. She and her brother attended the International School of Düsseldorf while living there. She and her family returned to the United Kingdom when she was eight years old. She attended Woldingham School, an independent school in Surrey, as a teenager.
Her interest in acting began when she was six years old and saw her brother perform in a school production of The King and I. During rehearsals, she begged his teachers to let her participate in the play. They allowed her to join the chorus. She was heavily involved in theatre as a teen while attending Woldingham School. She was the student head of the drama department there, where she performed in plays and musicals, led workshops for younger students, and assisted with productions.
When she was 16, she saw Kenneth Branagh in a production of Henry V. His performance inspired her and reinforced her desire to pursue a career in acting. She wrote to Branagh and asked for his advice. "I explained that my parents didn't want me to act, but that it was my life's calling," she said. "Kenneth says that if you feel such a strong need to be an actress, you must be an actress," Branagh's sister responded.
Mulligan's parents were opposed to her acting ambitions and preferred that she attend university like her brother. She applied to three London drama schools instead of the universities she was expected to apply to when she was 17, but she was not accepted. Julian Fellowes, an actor/screenwriter, gave a lecture at Woldingham School during her final year there about the making of the film Gosford Park. Mulligan approached him after the lecture and asked for advice on pursuing an acting career. Fellowes tried to talk her out of it, suggesting she "marry a lawyer" instead. Undaunted, she later wrote Fellowes a letter in which she stated that she was serious about acting and that it was her life's work.
Fellowes' wife, Emma, invited Mulligan to a dinner she and her husband were hosting for young aspiring actors a few weeks later. It facilitated Mulligan's introduction to a casting assistant, which led to an audition for a role in Pride and Prejudice. She auditioned three times before landing the role of Kitty Bennet. Between acting jobs, she worked as a pub barmaid and an errand-runner for Ealing Studios in her late teens and early twenties.
Career
2004-2008: Initial work
Mulligan made her stage debut in the play Forty Winks at London's Royal Court Theatre in 2004. She made her film debut the following year, co-starring with Keira Knightley in Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Later that year, she made her television debut as orphan Ada Clare in the BAFTA-winning BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.
Her 2007 projects included My Boy Jack, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Northanger Abbey, starring Felicity Jones, and the Doctor Who episode "Blink," for which she received the Constellation Award for Best Female Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode. She finished 2007 by playing Nina in an acclaimed stage revival of The Seagull, alongside Kristin Scott Thomas and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Her performance was described as "quite extraordinarily radiating" by The Daily Telegraph, and "almost unbearably affecting" by The Observer. She had to have an appendectomy in the middle of the production, which kept her from performing for a week. She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her debut Broadway performance in the 2008 American transfer of The Seagull, but lost to Angela Lansbury for Blithe Spirit.
Breakthrough and critical success from 2009 to 2014.
Her big break came at the age of 24, when she was cast as Jenny in the 2009 independent film An Education, directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig and written by Nick Hornby. Over a hundred actresses auditioned for the part, but Mulligan's audition stood out the most to Scherfig. The film and her performance were praised, and she was nominated for an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Award, and a BAFTA Award. Both Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum and Variety's Todd McCarthy compared her performance to Audrey Hepburn's. Mulligan received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination, which is voted on by the British public, after giving a "sensational, starmaking performance," according to Rolling Stone's Peter Travers.
She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2010. That same year, she co-starred with Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield in the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel Never Let Me Go. Her performance earned her a British Independent Award. That same year, she starred in Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. It was her first major studio project, and it premiered out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Later that year she also provided vocals for the song "Write About Love" by Belle & Sebastian.
From May 13 to July 3, 2011, she appeared in the Atlantic Theater Company's off-Broadway play adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass, Darkly. Mulligan was praised by critics for her performance as the central character, a mentally unstable woman. The New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley called Mulligan's performance "acting of the highest order," calling her "extraordinary" and "one of the finest actresses of her generation."
In 2011, Mulligan co-starred in two critically acclaimed films. The first was Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, which starred Ryan Gosling. The second film was Steve McQueen's sex-addiction drama Shame, in which he co-starred with Michael Fassbender. Both films were big hits at film festivals. Drive premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and Shame premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, both to critical acclaim. She received her second BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the film Drive, which also received four BAFTA nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. She received critical acclaim and a British Independent Film Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Shame.
In 2013, she starred as Daisy Buchanan opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, which was released in May 2013. In late 2010, Mulligan auditioned for the role of Daisy. Catherine Martin, Baz Luhrmann's wife, told her she had the part while attending a Vogue fashion dinner in New York City in November. In May 2012, she co-chaired the 2012 Met Ball Gala, which was themed Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, with Anna Wintour. In 2013, she co-starred with Oscar Isaac and Justin Timberlake in Joel and Ethan Coen's black comedy Inside Llewyn Davis. The film premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival.
She appeared in the London revival of Stephen Daldry's play Skylight in 2014, alongside Bill Nighy and Matthew Beard, at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. It was nominated for the 2014 Olivier Award for Best Revival and won the 2014 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Revival of the Year. She saw the show when it transferred to Broadway in April 2015 at the John Golden Theatre. The transition was a huge success. The play won the Tony Award for Best Revival, and she was nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for the first time.
2015–present: Continued success
Mulligan has received praise for her portrayal of a diverse range of complex characters. Mulligan received critical acclaim in 2015 for her roles in two critically acclaimed films released that year. She co-starred with Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge, and Michael Sheen in Thomas Vinterberg's film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Far from the Madding Crowd, as well as Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson, and Meryl Streep in Sarah Gavron's Suffragette.
In 2017, she starred in Dee Rees' Mudbound for Netflix. The film received positive reviews from critics. The film has a 97% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading, "Mudbound offers a well-acted, finely detailed snapshot of American history whose scenes of rural class struggle resonate far beyond their period setting." Rees received four Academy Award nominations for the film, including Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 2018, she co-starred with Jake Gyllenhaal in Paul Dano's directorial debut, Wildlife. Dano and Zoe Kazan wrote the screenplay, which is based on Richard Ford's novel of the same name. The film premiered at the 71st Cannes Film Festival and received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 94% rating, with the consensus reading, "Wildlife's portrait of a family in crisis is beautifully composed by director Paul Dano - and brilliantly brought to life by a career-best performance from Carey Mulligan." Mulligan was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress for her performance.
Mulligan returned to television as a Detective Inspector in Collateral, a BBC Two limited series that garnered praise from both American and British critics. Mulligan praised the script's creator, Sir David Hare, for seamlessly incorporating her pregnancy into the story.
Mulligan performed her solo show, Girls and Boys, at the Minetta Lane Theatre off Broadway. Dennis Kelly wrote the script and Lyndsey Turner directed it. Her performance was praised, with The New York Times calling it "perfection". Mulligan mentioned being injured while the curtain was being drawn on Stephen Colbert's Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Bradley Cooper, who was in the audience, went backstage and carried her to the hospital.
Mulligan co-starred with Bo Burnham and Alison Brie in Emerald Fennell's black comedy thriller Promising Young Woman in 2020. She also served as an executive producer on the film, which premiered to critical acclaim at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The film has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics agreeing that it is "a boldly provocative, timely thriller, Promising Young Woman is an auspicious feature debut for writer-director Emerald Fennell — and a career highlight for Carey Mulligan." The film's release date has been pushed back to December 25, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She received her second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance, as well as the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress, among many other honours. Mulligan dedicated her award for Best Female Lead at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards to the late Helen McCrory.
Mulligan took over for Nicole Kidman in The Dig, a film about the events of the Sutton Hoo excavation in 1939, co-starring Ralph Fiennes and Lily James, in 2021. It had a limited release in the United Kingdom, followed by a Netflix streaming release. The following year, Mulligan starred in Maria Schrader's She Said, based on the book of the same name, as Megan Twohey, one of the real-life New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Mulligan was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
Mulligan will play Felicia Montealegre in Bradley Cooper's directorial Maestro, a biopic based on Leonard Bernstein's life, alongside Cooper and Jeremy Strong. The film will be available on Netflix in 2023. She will also co-star with Adam Sandler in Johan Renck's Netflix adaptation of the science fiction novel Spaceman of Bohemia. She will also have a voice role in the stop motion animated film Wildwood, which is based on the fantasy novel of the same name.
Mulligan's personal life revolves around her marriage to Marcus Mumford, the lead singer of Mumford & Sons. They were childhood pen pals who lost touch as adults and then reconnected. They married on April 21, 2012, just a few weeks after finishing production on the film Inside Llewyn Davis, in which they were both involved. They have two children.
Philanthropy
Aside from acting, Mulligan was one of the actresses who participated in the Safe Project, in which each was photographed in the location where she feels most safe, for a 2010 series to raise awareness of sex trafficking. She gave the Vionnet gown she wore to the 2010 BAFTAs to the Curiosity Shop, which sells donated items to benefit charities.
Mulligan became an Alzheimer's Society ambassador in 2012, with the goal of raising awareness and funding for Alzheimer's and dementia research. Her grandmother had Alzheimer's disease for the last 17 years of her life, and she couldn't recognise Mulligan. She assisted in the organisation and participation of the 2012 Alzheimer's Society Memory Walk, and she was one of the Alzheimer's Society runners in the 2013 Nike Run to the Beat half-marathon in London.
Mulligan became an ambassador for the charity War Child in 2014, and she visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in that capacity.
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2005 | Pride & Prejudice | Kitty Bennet | |
2007 | Blood on Benefits | Emma | Short film |
And When Did You Last See Your Father? | Rachel | ||
2008 | Slapper | Susan | Short film |
2009 | The Greatest | Rose | |
Brothers | Cassie Willis | ||
Public Enemies | Carol Slayman | ||
An Education | Jenny Mellor | ||
2010 | Never Let Me Go | Kathy H | |
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps | Winnie Gekko | ||
2011 | Drive | Irene | |
Shame | Sissy Sullivan | ||
2013 | The Great Gatsby | Daisy Buchanan | |
Inside Llewyn Davis | Jean Berkey | ||
2015 | Far from the Madding Crowd | Bathsheba Everdene | |
Suffragette | Maud Watts | ||
2017 | Mudbound | Laura McAllan | |
2018 | Wildlife | Jeanette Brinson | |
2020 | Promising Young Woman | Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas | Also executive producer |
A Christmas Carol | Belle (voice) | ||
2021 | The Dig | Edith Pretty | |
2022 | She Said | Megan Twohey | |
2023 | Spaceman | Lenka | Post-production |
Maestro | Felicia Montealegre | ||
Wildwood | (voice) | Filming | |
TBA | Saltburn | Pamela | Post-production |
Denotes productions that have not yet been released |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2005 | Bleak House | Ada Clare | Miniseries (15 episodes) |
2006 | The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard | Emily Pritchard | 6 episodes |
Agatha Christie's Marple | Violet Willett | Episode: "The Sittaford Mystery" | |
Trial & Retribution | Emily Harrogate | 2 episodes | |
2007 | Waking the Dead | Sister Bridgid | 2 episodes |
Northanger Abbey | Isabella Thorpe | Television film | |
My Boy Jack | Elsie Kipling | Television film | |
Doctor Who | Sally Sparrow | Episode: "Blink" | |
2014 | The Spoils of Babylon | Lady Anne York (voice) | 2 episodes |
2015 | The Walker | Sunny | 8 episodes |
2018 | Collateral | DI Kip Glaspie | Miniseries (4 episodes) |
2019 | My Grandparents' War | Herself | Episode: "Episode 4" |
2021 | Saturday Night Live | Herself (host) | Episode: "Carey Mulligan/Kid Cudi" |
Year | Title | Role | Venue |
---|---|---|---|
2004 | Forty Winks | Hermia | Royal Court Theatre, London |
2005–06 | The Hypochondriac | Angelique | Almeida Theatre, London |
2007 | The Seagull | Nina Zarechnaya | Royal Court Theatre, London |
2008 | Walter Kerr Theatre, Broadway | ||
2011 | Through a Glass Darkly | Karin | Atlantic Theatre Company, Off-Broadway |
2014 | Skylight | Kyra Hollis | Wyndham's Theatre, West End |
2015 | Golden Theatre, Broadway | ||
2018 | Girls & Boys | Performer | Royal Court Theatre, London |
Minetta Lane Theatre, Off-Broadway |
Year | Title | Album |
---|---|---|
2010 | "Write About Love" (Belle and Sebastian featuring Carey Mulligan) | Write About Love |
2011 | "Theme from New York, New York" | Shame |
2013 | "Five Hundred Miles" (with Justin Timberlake and Stark Sands) | Inside Llewyn Davis |
2014 | "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" (with Gillian Welch and Rhiannon Giddens) | Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis |
2015 | "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" (with Michael Sheen) | Far from the Madding Crowd |
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Carey Mulligan
Year | Award | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play | The Seagull | Nominated |
2009 | Academy Award | Best Actress | An Education | Nominated |
British Academy Film Award | Rising Star Award | Nominated | ||
Best Actress in a Leading Role | Won | |||
Critics Choice Movie Awards | Best Actress | Nominated | ||
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Nominated | ||
National Board of Review | Best Actress | Won | ||
Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | Nominated | ||
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | Nominated | |||
2011 | British Academy Film Award | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Drive | Nominated |
Critics' Choice Movie Award | Best Supporting Actress | Shame | Nominated | |
2012 | Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Through a Glass Darkly | Nominated |
2015 | Skylight | Nominated | ||
Tony Award | Best Leading Actress in a Play | Nominated | ||
2017 | Independent Spirit Award | Robert Altman Award | Mudbound | Won |
Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | Nominated | ||
2018 | Evening Standard Theatre Award[126] | Best Actress | Girls & Boys | Nominated |
Independent Spirit Award | Best Female Lead | Wildlife | Nominated | |
2019 | Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Solo Performance | Girls & Boys | Nominated |
2021 | Academy Award | Best Actress | Promising Young Woman | Nominated |
Critics Choice Movie Awards | Best Actress | Won | ||
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Nominated | ||
Independent Spirit Award | Best Female Lead | Won | ||
MTV Movie & TV Awards | Best Performance in a Movie | Nominated | ||
National Board of Review | Best Actress | Won | ||
Palm Springs International Film Festival | International Star Award | Won | ||
Santa Barbara International Film Festival | Cinema Vanguard Award | Won | ||
Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | Nominated | ||
2023 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | She Said | Nominated |
British Academy Film Award | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Nominated |
Name | Carey Mulligan |
Nickname | Carey Hannah Mulligan |
Gender | Female |
Date of Birth | 28-May-1985 |
Age in 2023 | 38 |
Birth Place | London, England |
Country | United Kingdom |
Nationality | British |
Height | 1.7 (m) |
Weight | Unknown (KGs) |
Profession | British Actress |
Height | In Centimeters: 170 cm. In Meters: 1.7 m. In Feet Inches: 5'7" |
Weight | In KG: Not known In Pound: Not known |
Eye Color | - |
Hair Color | - |
Marital Status | Married |
Spouse(s) | Marcus Mumford |
Marriage Date | (m. 2012) |
Children | 2 |
The Net Worth of Carey Mulligan is $16 million.
The height of Carey Mulligan is 1.7.
The birthplace of Carey Mulligan is London, England
The birthday of Carey Mulligan is on 28-May-1985.
The marital status of Carey Mulligan is: Married.