Carey Hannah Mulligan (born 28 May 1985) is an English actress. She has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award.
Mulligan made her professional acting debut on stage in Kevin Elyot's play Forty Winks (2004) at the Royal Court Theatre. She made her film debut with a supporting role in Joe Wright's romantic drama Pride & Prejudice (2005), followed by diverse roles in television, including the drama series Bleak House (2005), the television film Northanger Abbey (2007), and a guest appearance in Doctor Who, where she played Sally Sparrow. She made her Broadway debut in the revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull (2008), which earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination.
Mulligan's breakthrough role came as a 1960s schoolgirl in the coming-of-age film An Education (2009), for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She gained further acclaim for her performances 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 (2022). For her performance in the Broadway revival of David Hare's Skylight (2015), she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, and for her portrayal of a vigilante in the black comedy Promising Young Woman (2020), Mulligan received her second Academy Award nomination.
Mulligan has been an ambassador for the Alzheimer's Society since 2012, and an ambassador for War Child since 2014. She has been married to singer-songwriter Marcus Mumford since 2012. They have two children.
Early life and education :
Carey Hannah Mulligan was born on 28 May 1985 in London, to Nano (née Booth) and Stephen Mulligan. Her father, a hotel manager, is of Irish descent and is originally from Liverpool. Her mother, a university lecturer, is from Llandeilo, Wales. Her parents met while they were both working in a hotel in their twenties. In My Grandparents' War (2019), she explored her maternal grandfather Denzil Booth's role as naval radar artillery officer on HMS Indefatigable at the Battle of Okinawa and then sailing into Tokyo Bay at the end of World War II.
When Mulligan was three, her father's hotel manager work took the family to Germany. While living there, she and her brother attended the International School of Düsseldorf. When she was eight, she and her family moved back to the UK. As a teenager, she was educated at Woldingham School, an independent school in Surrey.
Her interest in acting sparked from watching her brother perform in a school production of The King and I when she was six. During rehearsals, she pleaded with his teachers to let her be in the play. They let her join the chorus. While enrolled in Woldingham School as a teen, she was heavily involved in theatre. She was the student head of the drama department there, performing in plays and musicals, conducting workshops with younger students, and helping put on productions.
When she was 16, she attended a production of Henry V starring Kenneth Branagh. His performance emboldened her and reinforced her belief that she wanted to pursue a career in acting. She wrote a letter to Branagh asking him for advice. "I explained that my parents didn't want me to act, but that I felt it was my vocation in life," she said. Branagh's sister replied: "Kenneth says that if you feel such a strong need to be an actress, you must be an actress."
Mulligan's parents disapproved of her acting ambitions and wished for her to attend a university like her brother. At age 17, she applied to three London drama schools instead of the universities she was expected to apply to, but was not invited to attend them. During her final year at Woldingham School, actor/screenwriter Julian Fellowes delivered a lecture at the school on the production of the film Gosford Park. Mulligan briefly talked to him after the lecture and asked him for advice on an acting career. Fellowes tried to dissuade her from the profession and suggested she "marry a lawyer" instead. Undeterred, she later sent Fellowes a letter in which she stated she was serious about acting and that it was her purpose in life.
Several weeks later, Fellowes's wife Emma invited Mulligan to a dinner she and her husband were hosting for young aspiring actors. It facilitated an introduction between Mulligan and a casting assistant that led to an audition for a role in Pride and Prejudice. She auditioned three times, and was eventually given the role of Kitty Bennet. During her late teens and early twenties, she worked as a pub barmaid and an errand-runner for Ealing Studios between acting jobs.
