Carey Mulligan On Her “Education”

A scene from Lone Scherfig’s “An Education.” Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Mulligan said she owes a great deal of her acclaim to the film’s director, Lone Scherfig.  A Danish director (“Italian For Beginners,” “Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself”), Mulligan described her as essentially the antithesis of egomanical.

“It was a really happy set,” Mulligan smiled. “Lone doesn’t see making films as a stressful process. She doesn’t come in in the morning thinking this is going to be really tough. She comes in and she’s like ‘were making a film, how lucky we are.’ She comes and sits in the makeup room and chats to the makeup artist, talking about getting free Christian Dior perfume. You know, she’s a girl about it. But then she’s also incredibly professional. She’s in charge, there’s no question who’s running the show. But it’s never heavy handed. She doesnt work on a punishment-reward scheme. You don’t feel like when you do well she’s nice to you and when you don’t, she’s horrible. She’s just incredibly measured the whole time. There’s no politics. She doesn’t run the set through an ego. She just runs it through wanting to tell the story the best way possible. Which makes for a kind of calm place.”

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.”

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