Carey Mulligan - Biography

Biography:

Carey Mulligan did not take long to announce herself to the world. Having made her on-screen debut in 2005, less than three years later she'd be making headway in Hollywood, as well as filming An Education, a film that would see her Oscar-nominated alongside the illustrious likes of Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren. She'd then immediately prove herself to be an artist of interest when she signed on for both Oliver Stone's blockbusting Wall Street 2and Mark Romanek's adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's strange, sad and monumentally disturbing Never Let Me Go. She was so very clearly one to watch.

She was born Carey Hannah Mulligan on the 28th of May, 1985, in Westminster, London. Her father, Stephen, was a hotelier from Liverpool. Her mother was Nano Booth, a Welshwoman born in Llandeilo in Camarthenshire, on the western edge of the Black Mountains, due north of Swansea. Nano's parents were both teachers, mum Nansi instructing in Welsh and geography at Ysgol Maes yr Yrfa in Llanelli, while father Denzil was deputy head at Ysgol Tregib in Llandeilo. Nano would have a brother, David, married to Haulwen. With her grandma later living in Alltwen near Pontardawe and aunt Nanda in Cwmllynfell, Carey would have a large family based in the Llandeilo/Llangadog area and would often return to visit.

Stephan and Nano first lived in Liverpool, where son Owain would be born, then move down to London, where Carey would appear. Due to Stephen's job as hotel manager, the family would live in a couple of London's finest hotels, first the Mayfair Intercontinental on Stratton Street, close to Piccadilly and opened by George V in 1927 (it's now the Radisson Mayfair), and the Intercontinental London Hyde Park, very close by at 1, Hamilton Place. There was a gym, a steam room, a jacuzzi, a beauty salon, great luxury that Carey would not enjoy as Stephen's work with Intercontinental would see him promoted to manage their European arm and transferred to Dusseldorf when she was three.

In Germany the family would set up at, naturally, the Intercontinental Dusseldorf, at Konigsallee 59, a very sophisticated district full of art museums and fashion houses. Dusseldorf was a very progressive garden city with an international airport, over seventy consulates, forty trade fairs and over five thousand foreign companies, including the largest number of Japanese companies boasted by any city in Europe. Owain and Carey would attend the city's International School, which educated many of the children of the foreign managers working in Dusseldorf. From the age of four Carey would attend the International School's Elementary branch at Niederrheinstrasse 323, the senior school campus being nearby.

At the school there'd be a thousand students from fifty different countries. With large playing fields, small classes, art studios and a creative bent, the school would make serious efforts to improve both its students and society in general. They'd also, inadvertently, give a thespian debut to young Carey. When she was 6, brother Owain was cast in a school production of The King And I. She wanted to join him but was deemed too young. Cue tantrums till she was granted entry to the chorus.

It made sense, under the circumstances, for Stephen to live at his place of work, so Carey would spend her early years residing in plush hotels. Her mother would cook the meals but Carey and Owain would be watched over for much of the time by maids. These hotels were strange playgrounds, but the kids would see much of human life there, often while hiding in laundry baskets. Eventually, after the family had returned from Germany to Mayfair, Carey would even reach a stage where she'd call a hotel home. She'd need to as Stephen and Nano were so tied up in the business. Stephen would become manager of the Churchill in London's Portman Square then, when Intercontinental were taken over by Bass, he'd become regional VP for Central Europe and manage the Intercontinental in Vienna. Once Bass had mutated into Six Continents Hotels he'd be Area VP of Operations in Northern Europe, in charge of Intercontinental hotels as well as Crowne-Plaza, Holiday Inns and more. Mother Nano, meanwhile, would excel in her teaching career, becoming a Senior Lecturer in Tourism, Hospitality And Leisure, understandably specialising in International Hotel Management.

This is what Mulligan's parents were up to as she passed through her teens. They were busy, high-powered types so, to give their daughter some stability as well as an excellent education, they sent her to board at Woldingham School, at Marden Park in Surrey, just inside the M25 south of Croydon. This was a magnificent country house set on sweeping slopes, an all-girls independent Catholic school, founded in 1842 by the Society of the Sacred Heart, the society itself founded by Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat in 1800. Formerly known as the Convent of the Sacred Heart, the school had been moved from Roehampton to this site at Woldingham in 1946. While at Roehampton its alumnae had included Eunice and Patricia Kennedy, sisters of John F, many European princesses and famed actresses Vivien Leigh and Maureen O'Hara. Since the move to Woldingham they'd taught many more of the children of the British and European aristocracy.

From the age of 11, boarders like Mulligan would share rooms of four in Marden House. Come 13 they'd have study bedrooms in the Main House then, when they joined the Sixth Form at 16, they'd have rooms with private bathrooms in either Berwick or Shanley House.

Regular lectures and discos would be shared with the nearby Benedictine boys' school Worth Abbey, a young Mulligan attending one of the dances glammed up in purple shirt, green flares and silver wedges. Best of all for Carey, having wanted to perform in stage productions from an early age (she'd worn her Les Miserables teeshirt religiously between the ages of 10 and 13) she now had the opportunity, Woldingham having a strong drama department. A good student, Mulligan would gradually come to ignore her other studies in favour of drama. She'd be made a theatre prefect and would forever be around the department, putting on plays and assisting in workshops for the younger pupils. She'd play John Proctor in The Crucible and, in her final year, would appear in Sweet Charity. Her teacher Judith Brown (not to be confused with Judith M Brown, studio teacher on Jurassic Park, Magnolia and Million Dollar Baby) would say of Mulligan: "Not only is she very talented but she also has the right temperament and determination to succeed".

With her eye on the prize from an early age, Mulligan would be seriously considering her future career while still at school. At 15, impressed by Kenneth Branagh's all-round efforts on Henry V, which she'd seen as part of her drama studies, and recognising his reputation throughout the industry, she'd write him a letter asking if he'd become her mentor, provide advice, help in any way he could. She'd receive a reply from Branagh's sister Joyce, encouraging but not the resounding yes she'd hoped for. She'd also received a harsh blow from Julian Fellowes, the screenwriter and actor who'd won an Oscar for his script for Gosford Park. A friend of headmistress Diana Vernon, Fellowes was asked to give a talk to the girls and, about to eat with them afterwards, was told by Vernon that he'd been placed next to an enthusiastic student who desperately desired advice on becoming an actress. The student was a 17-year-old Carey Mulligan. Fellowes would later recall how his heart sank at this news, how the girl was charming but that he'd basically fobbed her off. He still remembered the look on her face, he'd say, when he advised her to marry a banker.

On leaving Woldingham in 2003, Mulligan would take a gap year. Her parents believed she was to continue her academic career, being accepted by Reading University. In fact, while she earned money working in a local pub, she was plotting a very different course. On her online university application form she had, unbeknownst to Stephen and Nano, placed several drama colleges, fully intending to become an actress and hoping that, once she won a place at a reputable establishment, her parents would come to understand. Once she'd pretended to visit Leeds University when in fact she'd simply dossed about in London. In late 2003 she'd work days as a runner for a film studio, at one point seeing Al Pacino arrive to work on his adaptation of The Merchant Of Venice.

Surely, she thought, Pacino was bound to notice her, recognise her massive potential, take her under his wing and cast her in Godfather 4. In fact, he swept past her, blithely unaware of her supreme greatness. She was then turned down by the three drama schools she approached. Auditioning for one, she'd later recall having to stand onstage in front of the ten other people in her audition group, and recite Shakespeare. She wasn't used to it and it was a deeply disappointing disaster. Finally she'd be busted when her mother went online and realised she'd been economical with the truth of her applications. Suddenly her thespian future was in grave doubt.

Mulligan did, however, have a champion at hand in the odd shape of the aforementioned Julian Fellowes. Though he'd not been supportive first time around, circumstances had now promoted him to be Mulligan's best chance of success. She'd now write to her former head Diana Vernon, explaining her situation, how she didn't want to go to university and was really very eager indeed to contact Mr Fellowes. Fortunately, Vernon would give her the information she needed to pen Fellowes a letter requesting his help once again, maybe they could meet up. This time Fellowes was more amenable, appreciating Mulligan's efforts in tracking him down and daring to write. As it happened, Fellowes and his wife had several nephews, nieces, and god- and grand-children, their own and those of friends not in showbiz, also desirous of advice on how best to make it in the industry. To kill all these birds with one stone, they invited these kids, along with Mulligan, to dinner at Le Caprice. Here Mulligan would tell her tale, how she had no family background in entertainment, how it felt like she was trying to fly to the moon, how she desperately needed a leg-up in the industry.

Fortunately for her, very fortunately, Fellowes' wife that night decided to take her on as a cause. Thus she gained the vital and considerable support of Lady Emma Kitchener-Fellowes, great-niece of Lord Kitchener and lady-in-waiting of Princess Michael of Kent. The next day, according to Fellowes, Lady Emma sat on the floor of their apartment and called every agent and casting director they knew. And they knew many. By lunch-time she'd discovered that director Joe Wright was casting for a new big-screen version of Pride & Prejudice. Now there'd be more calls. Casting agent Maggie Lunn would lead to her assistant Camilla Evans who'd lead to her friend Robin Hudson who'd lead to his boss Jina Jay, who'd worked on Billy Elliot, Kingdom Of Heaven and Tim Roth's The War Zone and was now casting director of Pride & Prejudice. Soon Mulligan would have a interview and, though 19, she'd look young enough to be cast as Kitty Bennet, youngest sister of Keira Knightley's Elizabeth. She'd find out she'd been cast while on the train to work.

This would be the end of the major aid Mulligan would receive from Julian Fellowes and Lady Emma, though he would soon score her some glossy magazine coverage courtesy of his brother's daughter, Jessica, Deputy Editor of Country Life and writer of the renowned Town Mouse column.

With a part in Pride & Prejudice secured, Mulligan would turn down her university place at Reading and begin her acting career in earnest. Her debut role would be downstairs at the Royal Court, in Kevin Elyot's 65-minute play Forty Winks. Directed by Katie Mitchell and running from March 11th, 2004 till April 12th, this would explore the dangers of unrequited passion and the painful way families have of repeating mistakes down the generations. In the play Dominic Rowan would reappear in the lives of unhappily married Simon Wilson and Anastasia Hille, 14 years after Wilson has stolen Hille from him and Hille has wrecked his reputation. Cricket goods salesman Wilson is disappointed in his lot while barrister Hille yearns to rekindle her relationship with Rowan, but Rowan's desire for Hille is deflected towards her daughter, Hermia, played by Mulligan, a narcoleptic, possibly abused, who can lose consciousness in an instant. If this wasn't confused and difficult enough, the play would then move forward a further 16 years to see Rowan pursuing Celia (also played by Mulligan), the young daughter of Hermia. It was harsh stuff and the critics weren't keen on the play, though the performances were uniformly lauded.

Following this, Mulligan would move up the Thames to Hammersmith where she'd join the YoungBlood Theatre at the Riverside Studios for a production of Joe Hutton's Towerblock Dreams. Running on Saturdays, YoungBlood took in a very mixed group of kids from Chiswick and Hammersmith for drama classes and workshops, the aim being to give early training to budding actors and, at the very least, allow kids to gain confidence from standing up in front of 30 or 40 of their peers. Interestingly, another student of YoungBlood, Imogen Poots, though four years younger than Mulligan, would in 2009 appear in Solitary Man, a movie starring Michael Douglas and Susan Sarandon, the year before Mulligan would feature alongside the same two stars in Wall Street 2.

Towerblock Dreams was a tough 75-minute drama with a cast of 12. Christopher Wear would star as Charlie, the lonely, bullied and self-mutilating hero with a reluctant prostitute sister. He's watched over by Alison Collinge, a blonde angel with her own sad story. Indeed, all the kids here are deserted or abused by their parents and guardians, Mulligan playing Fran, trying to protect her mute sister Shel (Georgia Duncan) from an abusive carer and relieving her frustration through arson. It would run at the Riverside between the 3rd and 6th of June, 2004.

Things would now change rapidly, as now Mulligan would be off to film Pride & Prejudice, on her first day being introduced to Dame Judi Dench, a far cry from Towerblock Dreams in Hammersmith. In the movie, Keira Knightley would play the modern and determinedly independent Elizabeth Bennet, tormented by her feelings for Matthew Macfadyen's D'Arcy. Knightley's wise but dominated and distracted father would be Donald Sutherland, her beautiful, sensitive sister Rosamund Pike and her ambitious mother, obsessed with her daughters' marriage prospects, would be Brenada Blethyn. In the midst of the chaotic Bennet household, which ritually explodes whenever an eligible bachelor comes within two hundred yards, would be Mulligan's Kitty, as said the youngest daughter. She'd spend much of the film's first half running around with sister Lydia, played by Donnie Darko's Jena Malone, shrieking and giggling as Pike and Knightley begin relationships with their aristocratic neighbours. As the various men arrive to court their prospective wives, Mulligan is constantly holding back her laughter and, as she's asked to leave the room, passes each nervous chap with a glance of mighty amusement, loving the embarrassment of it all. She changes her mood later, though, being horrified and hurt when her best buddy Lydia is picked up on a trip to Brighton by super-cad soldier Rupert Friend. Having lost her partner in mirth, Mulligan no longer prances and giggles, she's now a grieving and forlorn figure, especially pained when Lydia returns to gloat. Throughout the movie Mulligan would be an attention-grabbing irritant. Ordinarily, she might have been accused of overdoing it but, under these cirumstances, she was what she needed to be - proof that the Bennets were low-born and ill-mannered and good reason for D'Arcy to back away from Elizabeth. Mulligan would later return to Woldingham to watch the movie with Judith Brown and the current sixth form at the cinema in nearby Oxted.

Mulligan would describe the summer of 2004 as a "mad, happy summer - a party every weekend, lots of jumping naked into the lake". Of course, ever ambitious, she'd also be working hard to win roles and would be rewarded by a plum part in a new multi-million-pound BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Written by Andrew Davies, this would involve murder, disease and hidden identities, all based around the long-running Jarndyce vs Jarndyce case, a legal battle over a huge estate that's been in court for years and will be for years longer. Anna Maxwell Martin is the protege of one of the Jarndyce family, played by Denis Lawson who's also the guardian of young Patrick Kennedy and Mulligan. Lawson warns them all to stay clear of this endless, soul-sapping saga of gold-digging and multiple testaments, but Kennedy cannot help but be drawn in. Mulligan's his distant cousin and does not share his hope of a settlement.

She loves him, eventually marries him and falls pregnant, and must watch as he's first financially ruined then physically broken by the case. Filmed between February and July of 2005, the series would also feature such weighty performers as Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance, Phil Davis, Matthew Kelly and Ian Richardson, and would be nominated for an extraordinary number of awards - 12 BAFTAs, 10 Emmies, 2 Golden Globes. With Pride & Prejudice having reaped nominations for 4 Oscars, 6 BAFTAs and 2 Golden Globes, Mulligan had certainly got off to an auspicious start.

Mulligan would end 2005 with a return to the theatre in Moliere's The Hypochondriac at London's Almeida. Though the cast would still wear 17th Century French costumes, this was a modern and robust translation, with Henry Goodman as Argan, the titular anti-hero who's being taken to the cleaners by the doctors he consults. Told he has little time left, he decides to enjoy more passion with his unfaithful wife Ronni Ancona (Ancona's partner in mimicry Alistair McGowan had just appeared with Mulligan in Bleak House) and sort out his problems with daughter Angelique, played by Mulligan. Mulligan's in love with Kris Marshall's Cleante (she might have appeared with Marshall earlier had the fool Pacino spotted her and cast her in The Merchant Of Venice), but Goodman wants her to marry a repulsive dog-man of a doctor who'll then treat him for free. Thus Mulligan, left with the choice of a loveless life either with this creep or in a convent, must confront her father. Throughout she'd be fresh and kind but never sickly-nice, and the play was well-reviewed. As an aside, it was ironic, given the play's subject matter, that at its fourth performance back in 1673, Moliere would play the lead and be taken seriously ill, later dying of his ailments.

The Hypochondriac would run from November 10th, 2005, to January 7th of the next year. Mulligan would move straight to the Operating Theatre Company at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Tower Street, Covent Garden, for a rehearsed reading of Rob McIndoe's I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts. This formed part of the theatre's fourth Writers' Block series where it would dedicate a week to staging the best new plays. Running between February 20th and 25th, 2006's series would also feature Janet Suzman in Dream Of The Dog. One regular writer for Writers' Block would be Crispin Bonham Carter. Mulligan's other less-visible production of 2006 would be a very brief appearance in the 13-minute psychological horror short Blood On Benefits. This was made by Keychain Productions, a group of youngsters experimenting in film, and directed by Andrew-Lee Potts, who'd also co-star with Joseph Beattie. The film would see Beattie chained to a door and being taunted, harangued and questioned by Potts as several other damaged characters appear to add their own accusations.

All the others are decidedly gothic except Mulligan who, with her hair pulled sharply back and a babe in arms, is kind of chavvy as she takes a pop at Beattie for "stealing our women, upsetting our babies" and thereby forcing us to wonder if he's a vampire or an immigrant or both. It was an interesting piece, also featuring the RSC's Kathryn Drysdale and Potts' sister Sarah-Jane who'd find fame in the TV series Sugar Rush.

Far more high-profile work would come when Mulligan joined another all-star cast for The Sittaford Mystery, an episode of the latest Miss Marple series, featuring Robert Hardy, James Wilby, Rita Tushingham and Matthew Kelly, who'd recently appeared alongside Mulligan in Bleak House. Here politician Timothy Dalton, having been hand-picked as the sucxcessor to Winston Churchill, finds himself snowed in in a country inn. Evidence of both a scientific and spooky kind reveals that he's to die that very night and Geraldine McEwan's Miss Marple, who's staying a few mile away, faces a race against time to save him. One of the potential murderers would be a wired and domineering Patricia Hodge, apparently on a bird-watching trip with her speccy, mousey daughter Mulligan. Hodge would be a great boon to Mulligan on a professional basis. Moving between this kind of period fare and rougher, more streetwise work like Towerblock Dreams and Blood On Benefits, Mulligan was unsure of her ability to perform less realistic roles. The brilliant and vastly experienced Hodge would help her through.

Mulligan's next release would be the tough police procedural Sins Of The Father, from Lynda La Plante's ongoing Trial & Retribution series, following the police from the report of a crime right through to the final verdict. Here Mulligan would play the victim, a beautiful, ambitious young girl found dead on the floor of her parents' cellar with a massive head wound. We see her at the beginning in some sort of tiff with her friend in a club, then coming home to an empty house where she smiles at someone, then screams "Get off me!" and falls backwards down the stairs. When she's found we see her carried up the stairs, laid on plastic sheets on the sofa, then covered and taken away. From here on she'd appear in flashback as the police reveal that her supposedly perfect home-life was a sham, with dad Greg Wise conducting an affair, mum Nadia Cameron-Blakey suffering OCD and her brother being venomously jealous. The main suspect, though, is Andrew-Lee Potts, Mulligan's director in Blood On Benefits, who plays her secret boyfriend, a troubled electrician's apprentice. Also featuring Michael Fassbender, Claire Bloom and Glynis Barber, it was an interesting work, exploring the damage parents do in their efforts to protect their kids.

Mulligan's final appearance of 2006 would come in another BBC series, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. Here Jane Horrocks would star as a no-nonsense northern supermarket manager who decides to run for office.

Backed by her multi-millionaire boos Frances Tomelty her campaign takes off and, with the help of ship-jumping Tory Janet McTeer, she wins power for her Purple Alliance. Now the knives are out and Horrocks' husband's secret money-laundering past may cause difficulties. Mulligan, meanwhile, playing Horrock's daughter Emily, is a student at the University of Sussex and causes more trouble when she poses semi-naked for a lads' magazine and the pix are projected onto the Houses of Parliament. Spending the money she's paid on a sports car, Mulligan then works as apprentice to Tomelty who tells her to keep Mackintosh's secret from her mother. After just two weeks, Mulligan cracks, quits the job and comes clean to her mum.

2007 would be a breakthrough year for Mulligan. She'd begin it back at the Royal Court, downstairs in the Jerwood Theatre, for Christopher Hampton's new version of Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Ian Rickson. Here Kristin Scott Thomas would star as Arkadina, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Trigorin. Mulligan would be hopeful young actress Nina, loved by Arkadina's son, the frustrated playwright Konstantin, played by Mackenzie Crook, another beside whom Mulligan might have co-starred had Al Pacino not so cruelly passed her over. The play would begin with Mulligan making the best of Crook's dodgy new play which, possessing a new dense symbolism, he hopes will be a step forward in drama. Instead it brings only the scorn of his mother, a famous, haughty and vain actress. Mulligan, a neighbour's daughter, is star-struck by Arkadina and Trigorin, a renowned writer. Konstantin confuses and scares her by offering her a seagull he's shot, while Trigorin charms her with the tale of a young girl who's ruined by an older man out of sheer boredom. So she begins an affair with Trigorin, leaves for a career on the Moscow stage, then returns two years later. Now she's older and more experienced, having lost Trigorin's child and spent time touring the provinces. Leaving once again with the words "I am an actress", she shatters Konstantin's heart, causing his immediate suicide.

Running between January 18th and March 17th, 2007, this 2 hour 50 minute version of The Seagull was a one-off for the Royal Court. Rickson, the theatrre's artistic director, had thus far followed a policy of producing nothing but new writing but, as this was his last production and it was the Royal Court's 50th Anniversary, he decided to break his own rule and put on a classic. He was rewarded by the biggest selling production in the theatre's half-century. All the actors received stunning reviews and Scott Thomas would win an Olivier award. In the middle of the run Mulligan had suffered appendicitis and was told she'd be out for three to six weeks.

Utterly unwilling to be denied this great opportunity, she was back in a week, though now she'd not wear a corset due to the stitches. Jodie Whittaker had stepped in for two performances, script in hand, with Anna Madeley covering for the rest.

Back onscreen, Mulligan would appear in another BBC series, this time Waking The Dead, where cops and scientists would set about solving old crimes. In this episode, a two-parter called The Wren Boys, a boy drowned in concrete and found to have part of a human ear in his stomach would be DNA-linked to a current crime, leading the team into a dark world of bare-knuckle boxing. There's also a strange connection to a nearby abbey, up for demolition, and a young nun, played by Mulligan, whom seems to be afflicted with stigmata and worships at a woodland shrine. She'd then remain with the Beeb for more Jane Austen, this time Northanger Abbey, again penned by Andrew Davies. Here provincial girl Felicity Jones, obsessed with gothic novels, would be invited to join family friends in cosmopolitan Bath where she'd strike up a relationship with JJ Feild's Henry Tilney. Meanwhile, she'd make a new best friend in the flighty, gossipy Mulligan who leads Jones through the city's social whirl and sets her sights on Jones' brother, Hugh O'Connor, mistakenly supposing the family to be rich. When she learns otherwise she moves on to Feild's dashing but emotionless soldier brother Mark Dymond then, used and dumped, attempts to ensnare O'Connor once more.

Mulligan was excellent in the role of the cute but grasping and manipulative Isabella, looking good in bonnets and lace with bosom bulging, and performing sedately on the dancefloor. Isabella would be a gratifyingly real cow, recognising Jones' feelings for Feild but pushing her towards her own brother, William Beck, joyously hooking O'Connor but instantly being entranced by her arrogant militia-man, then lying brilliantly to try to regain her former status. Mulligan's quick intelligence would shine through very clearly. She'd also be impressive in an episode of Doctor Who called Blink, broadcast on June 9th. Here she'd play Sally Sparrow, a young lass in the present day who visits a ruined old house to take pictures. Here she's drawn into a wild plot involving creepy invisible characters called Weeping Angels who could steal the Tardis and cause temporal havoc. They cannot move while being watched, thus one must not perform the action of the title. It was tense stuff with excellent plotting, relevant information being cleverly passed from one time-travelling protagonist to another. And it says much for Mulligan's efforts that, though David Tennant's Doctor was hardly involved at all, Blink is regarded by fans as one of the finest episodes ever made. She really was a hoot. When questioned about her apparent sadness she retorts "It's happy for deep people". There was even a movement to persuade producers to make Mulligan's Sparrow the Doctor's next assistant.

June, 2007, would see two more Mulligan performances for the BBC, both on Radio 4. First would come Pat Barker's Life Class, where Jamie Parker would be interested in fellow student Mulligan but, when he realises a famous painter's after her, too, he backs off and begins an affair with model Teresa Halliday. Then, as World War One breaks out, both relationships reach crisis point and Parker and Mulligan turn once more to each other. Following this would come an adaptation of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, set in a country house in 1993 and the early 1800s, examining literature, mathematics, landscape gardening and much of what lies inbetween. In 1809 the precocious, brilliant and historically overlooked Thomasina would be taught by a friend of Byron and she'd muse over theories of chaos and thermodynamics years before they were officially recognised. Then some 200 years later, at the same house, Nicole Redmond would investigate a hermit while Jason Watkins would research Byron, between them revealing the truth of what actually occurred all those years ago. Mulligan would play the 18-year-old daughter of the house at the later date, the modern equivalent of Thomasina. She'd drive the drama along by trying to push Redmond and Watkins together, letting slip that Watkins has given a poor review to Redmond's work, eagerly discussing determinism and then herself getting caught in a compromising position with Watkins.

Mulligan's next appearance would be in the moving movie And When Did You Last See Your Father?, filmed at the end of 2006 and given a London premiere in September, 2007. Directed by Anand Tucker, who'd earlier helmed Hilary And Jackie and produced the Colin Firth-starring Girl With A Pearl Earring, this saw Firth returning home to visit his father, Jim Broadbent, now dying of cancer. Having always thought he hated Broadbent for his overbearing flamboyance and for a supposed affair with aunt Sarah Lancashire that means his cousin is really his sister, Firth now looks back to his childhood in an attempt to understand. In flashback he becomes teenager Matthew Beard, a shy and bookish boy who's ever embarrassed by Broadbent's garrulous bonhomie. Over time we realise that Broadbent, though a bit of a chancer, is constantly teasing and pushing Beard simply to get him out of his shell and enjoying life. They're very different personality types and can't understand each other, a situation not helped by their failure to talk openly. At one point, Broadbent takes the family on holiday and it's here that, in two scenes, they meet young entertainments organiser Mulligan. Cute, polite and interested, she immediately grabs Beard's fancy. Broadbent moves in, gets her chatting then leaves her with Beard who tries to engage her by running down Broadbent. Unfortunately for Beard, she's just lost her own father, so he bombs badly. Then they're all at the dinner table and Broadbent earns Beard's ire once more by tricking him into taking a mouthful of vodka. Everyone laughs as Beard storms out.

Though her part was small Mulligan was excellent here, ideas continuously invading her face as she enjoys Broadbent's japes and then is shocked by Beard's pain and angry over-reaction. She clearly can't see why Beard hates the family life she so sorely misses, yet still sympathises. Also featuring in this classy little Brit-flick were Juliet Stevenson , Gina McKee and Elaine Cassidy.

Mulligan's final release of a busy 2007 would be My Boy Jack, based on the story of Rudyard Kipling's son, swept up in patriotic fervour as WW1 breaks out and killed in a foray across No Man's Land, leaving his father drowning in guilt. First screened on Remembrance Day, the film was conceived by actor David Haig who'd been given a biography of Kipling back in 1985 and was struck by how much he resembled the author. At some point, he thought, he should play him, but would probably have to make his own opportunity. Given Kipling's unfortunate present reputation as a jingoistic warmonger, it would take some time. By 1994 he'd completed a stage play which opened at the Hampstead Theatre in 1997 and toured the UK in 2004. In the mid-Nineties he completed a screenplay which took another decade to reach the screen. The film would see Haig reprise his role as Kipling, with Kim Cattrall as his wife and Daniel Radcliffe, attempting to make a name for himself as an actor outside the Harry Potter franchise, as young Jack, weighed down by his father's reputation and foiled by his own terrible eyesight, seeking any way possible to reach the front line. Mulligan would appear as Jack's sister, Elsie, known as Bird for her slender frame (Elsie had been played by Sarah Howe in 1997 and Rosanna Lavelle in 2004). She'd be plucky and funny. Very close to her "best beloved brother" she'd clandestinely smoke and drink whiskey with him, hiding the fact from dad. She'd work in the fields for the war effort and bravely rage at Kipling for his efforts to place her brother in jeopardy, first in the navy then the army. Eventually, though wracked by sorrow, she'd understand Jack's need to escape the darkness of Bateman's, the family's country pile in Burwash, East Sussex (where much of the film was shot), and the weight of Rudyard's reputation, and find his own way to glory.

Now sharing a north London flat with a friend, Mulligan was spending a fair amount of time shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic, seeking work in Hollywood pictures. This process would rapidly become much easier as, in quick succession, she now filmed Brothers, An Education, Public Enemies and The Greatest. Her single break from filming would see her reprise her role as Nina in The Seagull when the production moved to the Walter Kerr Theatre at 219 West 48th Street, beginning previews on September 16th, 2008, and closing on December 21st.

Most of the cast would return, including Kristin Scott Thomas, though Chiwetel Ejiofor would be replaced as Nina's lover Trigorin by Peter Sarsgaard, making his Broadway debut. Again the play would be a huge hit.

The first fruit of Mulligan's busy filming period would be The Greatest, her first Hollywood release. This would see her as a teenager involved in a car crash with High School sweetheart Aaron Johnson. He's killed, she survives, but she is pregnant from the one time they've had sex. As she has no family she's invited to live with Johnson's family, wealthy professor Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon. Brosnan's engaged in an affair with Jennifer Ehle at work while Sarandon becomes obsessed with her son's final thoughts. Both come to get a grip on their grief as the nine months pass and the resilient Mulligan enters their affections. Though it would play at festivals throughout 2009, it would only be released in the States in March the next year, and then only at a few cinemas.

The Greatest would premiere at Sundance in January, 2009. So would An Education, for which Mulligan had fought hard and been seen by the producers three times. This one would make Mulligan the talk of the festival. Based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber, penned by Nick Hornby and set in the early Sixties, it would see Mulligan as a middle-class schoolgirl living in Twickenham and thinking of going up to Oxford. On a rainy day she's picked up at the bus stop by smoothie Peter Sarsgaard (also her older lover in The Seagull) who entices her into his sports car and a sophisticated life of parties and foreign travel. Along the way she's trained and equipped for this new life by the elegant Rosamund Pike (Mulligan's older sister in Pride & Prejudice), the glamorous girlfriend of Sarsgaard's business partner Dominic Cooper, and discouraged from this new path by her parents and headmistress Emma Thompson.

The film was especially interesting as Sarsgaard is no predator, rather he's an adult seeking to recapture his youth. It's Mulligan who pushes the relationship into sexual areas, Mulligan who's keen for new experience of every type. It was a great role, superbly executed by Mulligan and, with her gamine hairdo she was hailed as the new Audrey Hepburn (a comparison she laughed off by saying Hepburn didn't have "Shrek cheeks and a wonky mouth"). While the Sundance buzz was still on, she had a meeting with Warren Beatty who, horrified that she was going to get the bus to her next meeting, drove her there himself and became something of a mentor to the young actress, reading scripts for her and giving her advice on dealing with the attention that comes with fame. Things were certainly on the up, as was evinced by a small role in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, concerning the FBI's crackdown on crime and their hunt for gangster John Dillinger.

Mulligan would appear right at the start, after Johnny Depp's Dillinger has broken his buddies out of jail and taken off for Chicago. Turning up at a safe house, they have a blonde Mulligan come out to greet them. "Hey, doll" says Depp, "Did you get hold of Marty?" "Sure did", replies Mulligan as he puts his arm around her, they peck a kiss and move inside. She's evidently both a girlfriend and trusted accomplice, so trusted that in her other brief scene she gives him a simple nod and he knows exactly what she means.

Mulligan's final film release of 2009 would be Brothers, actually filmed before the other three, in late 2007. A remake of Susanne Bier's Danish original from 2005, this would see soldier Tobey Maguire sent to Afghanistan and leaving wife Natalie Portman and two kids behind. When it's reported that Maguire has been killed in a chopper crash, his brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, just released from jail, tries to help Portman out as his more responsible brother would have done. They become close, then a traumatised Maguire returns, wanting to know the score. Mulligan would appear as a bereaved single mother whose military partner, it seems, is dead because of Maguire. She could easily draw on real-life fears here as her brother Owain, who'd been in the Royal Artillery before studying Modern History at Christchurch, Oxford, had then spent seven months with the Territorials in Iraq.

Mulligan would begin 2010 in the worldwide spotlight when An Education saw her Oscar-nominated alongside Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Sandra Bullock and Gabourey Sidibe, the performance also seeing her nominated for a Golden Globe and winning a BAFTA. Her first release of 2010 would be Never Let Me Go, a reunion with Keira Knightley, star of her debut Pride & Prejudice. As said, this was based on Kazuo Ishiguro's slow, understated but shocking novel where humans are cloned and the issue are raised in special schools before having their organs harvested and transplanted into needy "real" people. Mulligan would play Kathy who's best friends with feisty Knightley and her troubled lover Andrew Garfield. Over a period of years this triangle changes shape, with Mulligan becoming a carer and therapist for the other two as they come to their ends. Gradually, through Mulligan's investigations, their few hopes are dashed while the whole truth of their past and their real place in society is revealed.

Never Let Me Go would also feature Charlotte Rampling and Andrea Riseborough, the latter stepping in to take Mulligan's place as threatened waitress Rosie in a new version of Brighton Rock when Mulligan dropped out to join Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf and her recent co-star Susan Sarandon in Oliver Stone's Wall Street sequel, Money Never Sleeps.

Mulligan had caught Stone's eye (as she had everyone else's, including Never Let Me Go director Mark Romanek's) with her efforts in An Education and so he cast her as Gordon Gekko's estranged daughter Winnie and set up production so that her scenes would be shot last, allowing her to perform her publicity duties for An Education. In the movie, she'd hate her dad Douglas for causing her brother's suicide. Thus she's appalled when her partner, LaBeouf, gets involved with Douglas when he's released from jail, Douglas volunteering to help LaBeouf take down wicked financier Josh Brolin in return for help in reconciling with Mulligan.

Considering the roles she's chosen since hitting the big time, it seems likely that Carey Mulligan will never be content with mere fame. We can expect her, like her former co-star Susan Sarandon, to move between high-budget blockbusters and artier projects as the mood takes her. For now, she is one of Britain's brightest prospects in years.

Dominic Wills