Carey Mulligan Told "Marry A Banker" Rather Than Act

Strangely enough, when Carey Mulligan isn’t posing for the goons at Vogue, she can look quite lovely. And has some interesting things to say! Wonderland and Interview buttonnhole the actress on Shia LaBoeuf, acting, and why awards season is “scary.”

Indeed, it seems just about everything frightened Mulligan during her first trip to the nomination rodeo. “The photos: That many people looking at you. The possibility of winning where you’re going to have to get up and say something. The times when you actually have to prepare a thing to say, and you wonder, ‘Should I try to be funny? I shouldn’t try to be funny.'”

More interestingly, the English starlet tells Wonderland writer Marshall Heyman that when she first set out to become an actress, some of the people she looked to for advice were less than encouraging. When novelist, actor, and Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes (he did Gosford Park) visited her private girls’ high school to give a talk, Mulligan got an introduction from her headmistress, and asked him about acting. “I told him I wanted be an actress and he said, ‘Well, that’s silly. Marry a banker.'”

Later, Fellowes’ wife, Emma Kitchener, talked Mulligan up to the casting director of Pride and Prejudice, and Mulligan landed her first professional role as Kitty Bennett. Fellowes gave his (pompous) take on his encounter with Mulligan in the Telegraph last year; I hope Mulligan continues to remind him of his sexist little quip every chance she gets. And it looks like there’ll be many.

Meanwhile, over at Interview, once Susan Sarandon is done making Mulligan’s astrology chart, Mulligan tells her about dealing with the paparazzi that have descended upon her, now that she is a) a phenomenally successful actress whose turn in An Education was lauded with awards and nominations far and wide and b) dating Shia LaBoeuf:

the day I passed my driving test, I had to go to a meeting in Toluca Lake, so I was driving over there, and I was followed! This was the first time I was in my car on my own, and these three paparazzi guys were following me in their cars. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? This is great. The day I get my license, I’ll have this horrific accident.’ But the most ridiculous part was that I was trying to do some evasive driving to lose the — I mean, I can barely park, and I was trying to change lanes and things. My GPS woman was also not doing me any favors, so I was driving into cul-de-sacs and making U-turns — I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I was really stressed. Eventually I pulled over, and the three cars stopped behind me. I was sitting there, trying not to cry, trying to call a friend for help, when this guy — like, the leader of the pack — came up to my car and gestured for me to roll down my window. So I rolled it down, and he said, ‘We know where you’re going. We can’t take pictures of you there. But do you want us to show you how to get there?’ I didn’t want to accept his help because I was so angry, but I was also lost, so I had no choice. He said, ‘Okay, I’ll show you where it is, and then we’ll leave you alone. Just follow me.’ So I followed him, and the place I was looking for was two minutes away, blindingly obvious. And then he left me alone and drove away!

How strangely heartwarming.

And also there’s this:

MULLIGAN: You can spend an entire day walking around in New York, whereas in L.A., it always ends at some point because you have to find a way to get home.

SARANDON: Or you get mistaken for a hooker.

Aaaaaand that’s point, Sarandon..

Related:
Carey Mulligan [Interview Magazine]
Carey Mulligan [Wonderland Magazine]
Carey Mulligan: ‘She Is Not A New Audrey Hepburn. She Is Herself.’ [Telegraph]