Watch: Carey Mulligan Is Hardy’s Everdeen in First ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ Trailer

Since she broke on the scene with “An Education” just five years ago, she has delivered in a range of dramatic roles, period and contemporary, from Steve McQueen’s “Shame” and Baz Lurhmann’s “The Great Gatsby” to her heartbreaking turn in Mark Romanek’s underappreciated “Never Let Me Go.” (See clips below.)

Now she has landed the juiciest –and from the looks of the trailer below, the sexiest–lead role of all, in Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s new movie adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd,” which was memorably made by John Schlesinger back in 1967.

Fond as I am of that romance starring Terence Stamp, Peter Finch and Alan Bates as the three men who woo headstrong “adventuress” Bathsheba Everdeen (Julie Christie)–the movie is far better than the hilarious trailer below–I am hearing good buzz on the new one from writer David Nicholls (“Starter for Ten”) and Vinterberg (“The Hunt”).

Hunky Matthias Schoenaerts (“Rust and Bone”) takes on the sturdy sheep farmer role once played by Bates, Michael Sheen (“Masters of Sex”) is the more mature gentleman who proposes marriage (Finch) to his neighbor property owner, and “On the Road” star Tom Sturridge is the rakish sergeant (Stamp) who wins her heart.

“They’re really great actors all of them,” Vinterberg told me a year ago after wrapping the picture. “It was an intense experience, with a lot of scenes in nine weeks in difficult English weather including a lot of animals– sheep and horses– but it was a joy ride.”

This movie has a different script from the Schlesinger, he says. “I don’t think they have much in common. I peeked in to see how did they do the fire, but I never saw the whole film.”

Fox Searchlight has dated the period romance for May 1, 2015, ahead of next year’s Cannes (where Vinterberg once took home the jury prize in 1998 for Dogme film “A Celebration”), so we’ll have to wait for a while–unless they take it to Sundance.

I talked to Vinterberg about this film as well as 2013 Oscar nominee “The Hunt,” below.

The film is produced by Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich.

Watch: Mulligan and Scherfig talk “An Education.”